



Oiri-'ICIAI. IJONA.TXO'K- 





Pan-American 
Exposition . , 

New Jersey 
Hand-Book 





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Pan-American Exposition. 



NEW JEESET 

HAND-BOOK. 



Published by the State Board of Agriculture, 

As authorized by the Executive Committee. 



EDITED BY 



FRANKLIN DYE 

S e ere t ary. 




TRENTON, NEW JERSEY. 

JUNE I , I 90 I . 



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\-'~ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGES. 

Agricultui-al Experiment Stations 90-97 

Agricultural Organizations and Officers 98. 99 

Chief Manufacturing Centers and Their Industries 121 

Crop and Stock Values 48. 49 

Education — The School System — Revenues, &e 31-33 

Forest Areas, Values, &c SO 

Industries Classified 119 

Introductory Note — Acknowledgments 5 

Jewish Colonies in South Jersey 108 

Manufacturing Interests — Diversity of Industries 115 

Marl 78 

New Jersey Geologically — Area, «&c 22-30 

Number of Men and Women Employed and V^alue of Annual 

Product 128 

Outline History of New Jersey 10-21 

Outline of County History, Soils and Products 50-75 

Oyster and Fish Industry 105 

Rural Attractions and Productions 39-49 

State Officials and Commissioners 9 

'State Weather Service 102 

The Silk Industry 117 

The State Agricultural College 88 

Transportation Facilities 85 

Unoccupied Lands 76 



New Jersey Hand-Book. 



Published under the Auspices of the New 
Jersey State Board of Agriculture. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

The object in the preparation of this hand-book is to give 
such information as may l)e helpful to those who wish to learn 
more about a State whose resources, possibilities and advan- 
tages on many lines are not generally known and which have 
been ignored or passed by l)y those in quest of the best location, 
whether for educational advantages, business, agriculture or 
retirement. To all Mdio may be seeking such a place, we invite 
a careful consideration of the superior advantages possessed 
by New Jersey. For details see accompanying pages. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 

In the preparation of this l)0(>k, it gives me pleasure to 
acknowledge the kind assistance of Francis B. Lee, Esq. ; J. 
Brognard Betts, Deputy State Superintendent Schools; Pro- 
fessor John C. Smock, State Geologist; William Stainsby, 
Chief of Bureau of Lal)or and Statistics; Dr. Edward B.Voor- 
hees, Professor of Agriculture and Director State l^lxperiment 
Station; Professor E. W. McGann, Director State Weather 
Service; Hon. Thomas F. Austin. Superintendent State Oyster 
Commission; Hon. Henry I. Budd, State Koad Commissioner; 
Professor Boris D. Bogen, Principal Baron de Hirsch Agri- 
cultural and Industrial School, and Samuel B. Ketcham, Esq. 

FRANKLIN DYE. 




ey o oAl'v . .XOUo-oT h.tJUO 



Governor 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



STATE OFFICERS. 



governor, 

Foster M. Voorhees. 

President of Senatr Mahlon Pitney. 

Speaker of House William .J. Bradley. 

Secretary of State George Wurts. 

Treasurer George B. Swain. 

Comptroller William S. Hancock. 

Attorney-General Samuel H. Grey. 

Adjutant-General Alexander C. Oliphant. 

Quartermaster-General Richard A. Donnelly. 

State Geologist John C. Smock. 

Commissioner of Public Roads Henry I. Budd. 

President State Board of Taxation James L. Hays. 

Secretary State Board of Education Charles J. Baxter. 

Principal State Normal and Model Schools James M. Green. 

State Superintendent Public Instruction Charles J. Baxter. 

Assistant Superintendent Public Instruction J. Brognard Betts. 

Secretary State Board of Health Henry Mitchell. 

state commission. 

The New Jersey State Pan-American Commissioners, appointed by 
the Governor, are : 

R. C. JenkinsojST, Chairman Newark. 

Oberlin Smith, Secretary Bridgeton. 

Mrs. Henry Elliott Mott Elizabeth. 

Dr. Mary J. Dunlap, Treasurer Vineland. 

B 



10 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 



OUTLINE HISTORY OF NEW JERSEY. 



BY FRANCIS B. LEE, TRENTON. 



Eecent scientific investigation justifies the belief that New 
Jersey was the habitation of man at a period long before the 
dawn of recorded history. This assumption is based upon the 
discovery of certain objects, unquestionably fashioned by hu- 
man hands, and which, for thousands of years, have laid un- 
disturbed in the sand, gravel and river-wash, carried down, 
in the glacial period, by the drainage of the Delaware valJey. 
These objects have been found in and near the city of Tren- 
ton, where, in the Age of Ice, the Delaware river emptied into 
a shallow bay, whose waters covered all but the highest points 
in the southern part of the State. 

From the presence of these objects, which are largely of 
argellite, and bear a striking resemblance to paleolithic imple- 
ments found in Europe, as well as from the remains of cer- 
tain extinct animals and from the discovery of human skulls 
and bones, a group of scientists, of international reputation, 
have concluded that Man, variously known as "Glacial," 
"Argellite''" and "Paleolitic," resided at or near Trenton at 
a time vastly antedating the presence of the Indian. In cul- 
ture, this first Man in New Jersey, whose only record are the 
evidences mentioned, was probably similar to Man of the 
er.rly Stone Age of Europe. 

Between this primeval occupancy and the twilight of re- 
corded history ages elapsed in silence. Not until the arrival 
of the transient Old World navigators and the permanent set- 
tlers from Holland is there positive proof that New Jersey 
was the home of human beings. But when the Dutch estal> 
bshed themselves on Manhattan island, and as early as 1630 
threw their outposts of civilization across the Hudson into 
New Jersey, they came into association with a so-called native 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 11 



race, the Lenni-Lenape, or Delaware Indians, members of the 
great Algonkin family. 

Few in numbers and scattered in shifting communities 
along the river valleys and seacoast, the Indian of New Jerse} 
had made some progress in agriculture and in the elementary 
arts, had a form of tribal government, partially matriarchal, 
and were less war-like than were the Indians of New Eng- 
land and central New York. For the latter reason, as well as 
on account of the philanthropic attitude of the Society ol 
Friends in West Jersey, the history of New Jersey, except for 
easily-suppressed shows of violence, is free from the lurid 
lights of rapine, murder and the torch, so characteristic of the 
early development of neighboring colonies. Indeed, the In- 
dian of New Jersey early lost his racial identity, and assimi- 
lating to a slight extent with the dominating races, but mainly 
with the Negro, has become interesting simpl}' from a senti- 
mental or historical standpoint. 

Lenni-Lenape of the full blood are now extinct in the 
State. 

HOLLAND AND SWEDEN. 

To the struggle for commercial supremacy between Holland 
and Sweden New Jersey owes her settlement. Stimulated by 
political, religious and economic liberty at home, and thirst- 
ing for world-power, Holland sought in the East Indies and 
upon the Atlantic coast of North America the establishment 
of colonies. With Hudson and Mey in her ships, the flag of 
the Netherlands was carried into the Hudson and Delaware 
rivers, and claim was laid to the soil of New Jersey. Under 
her West India Company, Holland guaranteed stable govern- 
ment to settlers who, by 1650, had occupied lands upon the 
banks of the Hudson, Passaic, Hackensack, Earitan rivers and 
smaller streams tributary to New York harbor, and had at- 
tempted the development of a colony at Cape May and near 
the city of Camden. These settlements were largely, if not 
solely, of an agricultural character, and it is to the Dutch 
farmer that New Jersey, particularly the eastern part of the 



12 XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 

State, is indebted for the beginnings of her agricultural pros- 
perity. 

Under the masterful hand of Gustavus Adolphus, the 
*'Cfesar of the Xorth," Sweden, by 1635, had become a for- 
midable rival of Holland. Disregarding the Dutch claim to 
the Delaware valley, an expedition, supported by the contri- 
butions of the court and the people, left Sweden in 1 (i38 to 
assert Sweden's claims in the Xew World. Similar enter- 
prises followed, and a Swedish population settled in the 
State of DelaAvare, in Philadelphia and its vicinity, and in 
New Jersey between Burlington and Salem. The Xew Jer- 
sey settlements were few in number and much isolated, 
devoted more to fur trading with the Indians and fisliing 
than to farming. A degree of prosperity gave promise of 
success to these undertakings, but in the home country sud- 
den political changes incident to the death of Gustavus 
Adolphus led Sweden to neglect her colonies over sea. Hol- 
land, quick to take advantage of the helplessness of the 
Swedes on the Delaware, subdued the colony in 16.55, in a 
military expedition during the progress of which not a drop 
of blood was shed. Thenceforth, for nine years, Xew Jerse\ 
was under the absolute domination of Holland. 

Upon the later life of the ]ieo])le of Xew Jersey the Dutch 
made a powerful impression. In the northeastern portion of 
the State the Hollander preserved racial characteristics in 
spite of drastic political changes. He maintained his church 
disti]Ht until the present day, kept his speech in current use 
until long after the Revolution and stamped upon the body 
politic well-defined principles of home government. Hjs 
farms were the homes of men eminent in State history, while 
in his school and church lil)erty of conscience and of speech 
were taught. 

Confined to the southern \n\Yt of the State the intluence 
of the Swede was less pronounced. Owing to the sparseness 
of the settlements and the inability of the Crown to care for 
the interests of the colonists, the Swedish Lutherans slowly 
merged into the Church of England, the mother tongue earlv 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 13 

beccime forgotten and but little remains of the Swedish in- 
fluence, except the family names and a spirit of independence 
and honesty, traceable to Viking ancestors through genera- 
tions of an unassuming but virtuous race of State-builders. 

THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

The Eestoration of the House of Stuart, in 1660, virtually 
marked the beginnings of English rule in New Jersey. The 
Crown recognized that Holland's control of the valleys of 
the Hudson and Delaware separated the New England from 
the southern colonies, and menaced the power of England in 
North America. Basing the claims of the Crown upon the 
discoveries of the Cabots, Charles II., upon the 12th of 
March, 166-4, conveyed to his brother James, Duke of York, 
an empire in the New World, including much of New Eng- 
land, New Y'ork and all of the present territory of New Jer- 
sey. To substantiate this grant, an armed expedition entered 
New York harbor in the summer of 1664; secured the capitu- 
lation of the Dutch authorities and a formal transfer of Hol- 
land's claims to soil and government in North America was 
made to England. In the early spring of the same year the 
Duke of York transferred practically what is now New Jer- 
sey to John, Lord Berkeley, and Sir George Carteret, two 
devoted adherents of the House of Stuart, during the Com- 
monwealth. In recognition of Carteret's defense of the island 
of Jersey against the forces of Cromwell, the Berkeley-Car- 
teret grant was called New Jersey (Nova Caesarea). 

Unlike many other royal grantees in America, Berkeley and 
Carteret personally essayed the development of their colony. 
To encourage settlement, a government of an exceedingly 
liberal character was guaranteed, and especial stress was laid 
upon the advantages New Jersey offered to farmers. The 
natural fertility of the soil, the geniality of the climate, and 
the advantages of low-priced land were set forth as induce- 
ments for colonization, as well as the nearness of mines and 



14 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

fisheries. Emigrants speedily came from England, Scotland 
and New England, particularly from Long Island and Con- 
necticut. A large proportion were of Presbyterian and Con- 
gregational connections, and took up land in Newark, Eliza- 
beth, the mouth of the Earitan and along the north shore of 
Monmouth county. Here was created a social, political and 
religious atmosphere contemporaneously identical with that 
of New England. The growth of small individualistic com- 
munities is most noticeable, the "to\ATi meeting" ruled public 
opinion, legal penalties were taken from the Hebraic Dis- 
pensation, and the minister became the teacher as well as 
preacher. 

In the meantime the valley of the Delaware remained un- 
settled. 

Scarce had the communities around New York harbor 
become established ere Berkeley sold his interests to a com- 
pany of Quakers from England. To adjust the claims of the 
new owners and the rights of Carteret, a division of the 
colony was made in 1676. From a point in Little Egg 
Harbor, on the seacoast, to a point near the Delaware Water 
Gap a line was drawn. Carteret secured East Jersey; Berkeley 
and his assigns obtained West Jersey. 

THE TWO JERSEYS. 

The Society of Friends, largely under the leadership of 
William Penn, designed West Jersey as a model common- 
wealth, where as much freedom should be allowed the indi- 
vidual as was consistent with the doctrines of the Society. 
A frame of government, the most democratic the world had 
then seen, was circulated among the English Quakers, and 
between 1676 and 1090 Salem, Burlington, Newton, Trenton 
and Capo !May had s])rung into existence. Large plantations 
were established along the Delaware and its tributary streams 
and a landed aristocracy grew up, sustained by intermarriage 
of prominent families and by "redemptioner" and slave labor. 
The county towns became social and political centers, and a 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 15 

type of society similar to that of Virginia, Maryland and the 
Carolinas resulted. There was, consequently, less of the more 
strenuous life of the Eastern division. 

The dominant influence in th3 political history of both 
East and West Jersey was two separate Boards, of Proprietors 
— one for each division. In each instance, the Boards were 
comprised of landed capitalists — many of whom were non- 
residents — and who became seized of the soil of the State by 
transfers from Berkeley and Carteret. In these Boards were 
lodged governmental powers, the most conspicuous of which 
was the right to select Governors for the respective divisions, 
which right Berkeley and Carteret had derived from the 
Crown. To this there was a constantly-growing objection on 
the part of settlers, which, in East Jersey, developed into open 
revolt. Xor was the situation improved by the stand pre- 
viously taken by the Duke of York, after his accession as 
James 11. In 1673 New Jersey was recaptured by the Dutch, 
who lemained in possession for a few months. With a Stuart 
disregard for previous grants and charters, James IT. claimed 
the ria^ht of proprietary government oyer New Jersey, and 
commissioned Sir Edmond Andros as Governor, nor was it 
until 1681 that the Crown finally established the govern- 
mental rights of the Proprietor.-. At last, recognizing the 
futility of their efforts, both Proprietary Boards relinquished 
to the Crown, in 1703, all claims of government, holding, 
simply, their title to the soil. Both Boards are still in ex- 
istence, and retain their land title — so far as it has not been 
alienated — the only instance of its kind in the United States. 

NEW JERSEY AS A ROYAL COLONY. 

The history of New Jersey for a period of seventy-five years 
of royal colonial life is interesting as illustrative of a slow 
but steady evolution, rather than for any dramatic incidents. 
The conditions of life were largely agricultural, the small 
farmer developing East Jersey, the plantation-owner becom- 
ing more apparent in West Jersey. Upon either side Phila- 



16 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

delpliia and New York were o))jective markets and small craft 
of all kinds plied between the towns and farms of New Jer- 
sey and the cities. But among the small farmers there was 
a spirit of discontent. As was so frequently the case, the 
Crown was unfortunate in its choice of unworthy court favor- 
ites as Governors; the landed proprietors secured seats in the 
Governor's Council and influenced the popular branch of the 
legislature; property qnalifications disenfranchised electors; 
small manufactures were prohibited by the acts of Parlia- 
ment; trade was restricted by the Navigation acts, while 
metallic money was drawn away from the colony by the 
stupid economic policy of the Lords of Trade and Planta- 
tions. Nor could the small farmer, for want of ready money, 
buy slaves or "redemptioners." While loyal to the Crown, 
there were, nevertheless, mutterings of discontent, of ill-con- 
cealed defiance of law officers and a spirit of restlessness, 
restrained by the wave of patriotism evoked by the French 
end Indian war, but which' swept on with increasing force 
after the opening of the year 1770. 

The most notable events of this period, from 1702 to 1775, 
were the suppression of piracy in the vicinity of New York 
and Cape May; the establishment of a continuous land and 
water route from Philadelphia and New York; the erection 
of ferries and post roads; the appearance, in the northern, 
central and western parts of the colony, of Huguenot, Scotch- 
Irish and Palatinate emigrants; the chartering of Princeton 
University and Rutgers College ; the establishment of the first 
Indian reservation in the United States in Burlington county, 
to which point most of the Jf ew Jersey Indians were removed ; 
the religious revival of George Whitefield, and the promulga- 
tion of John Woolman's abolition .ioctrine; the massacres 
by the Indians in Sussex county, and the erection of a series 
of barracks, owing to their need in ilie French and Tiidinn 
war, in various parts of the State. 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 17 



NEW JERSEY IN THE REVOLUTION. 

Whatever spirit there was ii) New Jersey, at the outbreak 
of the Revolution, favoring absolute independence was to be 
found largely among the owners of small farms. In the ex- 
citing days before the struggle most of the professional 
classes, the members of the Society ot Friends, the wealthy 
shipowners and the large merchants, were opposed to any 
radical action. True, the justice of the claims of the people 
of the colony was recognized by those of influence, but thai 
the colony should declare itself free and independent savored 
so strongly of treason that every conservative man stood in 
dread of the consequences. Some were for compromise ; some 
for agitation; but comparatively few could contemplate an 
existence apart from the mother country. 

New Jersey asserted her statehood upon July 2d, 1776, 
adopting a constitution, which altered but little the form of 
colonial government, and contained a provision that the docu- 
ment should not be operative after a possible reconciliation 
between England and New Jersey. The war party, and the 
party declaring for independence, necessarily, gained new 
and enthusiastic adherents, although the Tory element in 
the State remained aggressively active throughout the period 
of the war. This element was led by William Franklin, the 
last colonial Governor of New Jersey, who, driven from the 
State, sought refuge among Tory sympathizers in New York 
City, from which points raids were projected throughout the 
eastern division of the State. These raids were under the 
local supervision of bold, cruel and dissolute Tories, whose 
atrocities gained for them the name of "Pine Robbers." 

New Jersey in the Revolution, occupying, as she did, the 
point of military advantage l)etween the North and South, 
was the theatre of some of the most dramatic events of the 
war. The retreat of Washington through the Jerseys and the 
capture of the British-Hessian force at Trenton, which elec- 
trified the world, was followed by the affair at Princeton. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



The sufferings at Morristown^ the battles of Red Bank and 
Monmouth Court House (Freehold), the wintering of the 
troops at Middlebush and Somerville, and Washington's resi- 
dence at Rocky Hill, are all recorded on the pages of national 
history. The raids along the valley of the Haekensack, the 
battles of Elizabeth and Springfield, the "Affairs" in the 
vicinity of Salem and Tuckerton need no retelling. 

THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY. 

At the termination of the Revolution, New Jersey, al- 
though the State had practically asserted her sovereignity, 
the concensus of opinion was that the commonwealth must 
form a* part of the proposed closer union. New Jersey was a 
party to the Annapolis convention, and her delegation in th^ 
constitutional convention called to frame a more perfect 
union of the States, laid before that body, June 15th, 1787, 
the "New Jersey Plan," which, while defeated, led to the 
constitutional compromise upon representation. 

Both in the Congress adopting the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, in 1776, a.nd the convention adopting the Consti- 
tution of the United States, in 1787, the representatives from 
the State of New Jersey occupied conspicuous positions. The 
signers of the Declaration from this State were Richard 
Stockton, the eminent lawyer of Princeton; John Wither- 
spoon. President of the College of New Jersey, now Prince- 
ton University ; John Hart and Abraham Clark, men of piety 
and learning. Those who affixed their signatures to the 
Federal Constitution were William Livingston, the Revolu- 
tionary War Governor, and his successor in office, William 
Paterson; David Brearley, Chief Justice of New Jersey, and 
Jonathan Dayton, an eminent patriot. It was William Pat- 
erson who presented to the convention the famous New Jer- 
sey Plan. 

The adoption of the constitution and the certainty of a 
permanent and well-defined fonn of national government, 
f^tiiiHilatc(] State life. Before the close of the century Trenton 



NEW JEESEY HAXD-BOOK. 19 

was selected as the State capital ; Alexander Hamilton and his 
friends, by means of the Society for the Promotion of Usefiil 
Manufactures, laid the foundations of Paterson; wagon and 
post roads, with attendant ferries, were improved, and the 
farm lands of the northwestern part of the State came under 
cultivation. Party politics ran high. The old Tory ele- 
ment, the members of the Society of Friends in West Jersey, 
who throughout the Eevolution had been non-combatants, 
for conscience sake, were Federalists; while stimulated by a 
party press and the democratic tendencies of the young but 
vigorous Methodist Episcopal Church, the anti-Federalis's 
grew in strength. To the anti-Federalists party came many 
of the old privates of the Eevolution and much of the Calvin- 
istic element in East Jersey. The crisis was reached in the 
election of Thomas Jefferson as President in 1800, to which 
end Xew Jersey largely contributed. 

THE NEW CENTUTIY. 

The year 1800 saw Xew Jersey upon the threshold of enter- 
prises of great magnitude. Within the next decade the first 
banks in the State were chartered in Trenton and Newark, 
a briilge connecting New Jersey and Pennsylvania was con- 
structed at Trenton, both events occurring in the year 1804; 
an agitation for canals swept over the State; John Stevens 
and his son, Eobert L. Stevens, at Hoboken, applied steam to 
single and twin-screw propellers and constructed the first 
ocean-going steamboat, the "Phoenix;'^ the mail service was 
extended, while produce from the farms of New Jersey found 
ready market in the growing cities across the Hudson and the 
Delaware. At its incipiency the second war with England 
was not altogether a popular measure in New Jersey, and, 
indeed, for a time the "Peace" or Federal party regained 
political control of the State. New Jersey, however, as much 
for the protection of Philadelphia and New York, as for her 
own interest, furnished militia to garrison Billingsport, on 
the Delaware and Sandv Hook, at the entrance of New York 



20 XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

harbor. The positioji of the State led to overland transpor- 
tation of military supplies between the North and South, 
for the reason that the Atlantic seaboard was blockaded by 
British fleets. From this condition and owing to the demand 
for good roads, the first railroad charter ever granted in tb.'.; 
United States passed the Legislature in the year 1815. This, 
in connection with the revival of agitation concerning inter- 
nal waterways, led to the constructing of the Camden and 
Amboy railroad and the Delaware and Raritan canal, now a 
part of the standard lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
system across the State of New Jersey. 

THE INDUSTRIAL ERA. 

The period from the close of the second war with England 
to the Civil war was marked by the growth of the great cen- 
ters of population in New Jersey. A large foreign-born ele- 
ment entered the State. Jersey Ciiy, chartered in 1801, 
became the terminal point of railroads now a part of the 
national ti-unk systems; Newark's industries, particularlv 
leather, were vastly stimulated; Camden, by 1840, became 
a manufacturing center; Paterson's silk industry was cen- 
tralized, while the projection of the railroads led to the 
opening of fertile agricultural districts throughout the State. 
The iron, zinc and copper mines were developed. The public 
school system was extended, while reforms in penal and 
charitable institutions were instituted In 1844 the make- 
shift constitution of 17'«G was abandoned, and a new consti- 
tution, more in harmony with the spirit of the times, was 
adopted. 

THE CIVIL WAR AND THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY. 

The Civil war found New Jersey ready to respond to the 
call for troops. To the cause of the Union she furnished 
88,-305 men, or within 10,501 of her entire militia, and for 
the organization, subsisti'.ig, supplying, sup|)orting and trans- 
j'orting Jier troops she pnid nearly three million dollars. Fol- 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 21 

lowing the war came tlie period of prosperity. Attention was 
drawn by the lat« Charles K. Landis and other pioneers of 
an agricultural movement to the undeveloped possibilities of 
South Jersey. Vineland. liammonton and Egg Harbor were 
laid out, and the culture of small fruits, berries and grapes 
was attempted, practically assuring the future of these in- 
dustries. The pressing needs of Philadelphia and New York 
led to the development of dairying and the establishment of 
railroad milk service. Market gardens were cultivated within 
tlic metropolitan areas, wliile the oystc: and fishing interesli 
attracted the attention of capitalists. 

By 1885 the resorts which dot the coast of New Jersey 
had sprung into existence. Although (Jape May and Long 
Branch had become frequented as early as 1810, the absence 
of direct railroad communication hindered progress in town- 
building until Atlantic City was incorporated in 1854. In 
1 he early 70's Asbury Park and Ocean Grove came into being, 
aiid during the next fifteen years these were followed by a 
score of towns whose only reason for existence upon the dunes 
was that they should furnish health and pleasure to hosts of 
visitors. 

Within the past decade other changes have taken place, 
which will affect the life of the people of the State. Particu- 
larly is this true from the agricultural standpoint. Into the 
unoccupied lands of South Jersey have come the Russian 
Hebrews, successfully overcoming obstacles, while the recla- 
mation of the "Pines," either by State aid or individual 
efforts, and the prohibition of wasteful forest fires will provp 
a source of untold revenue to the citizens of New Jersey. In 
the vicinity of New York is centering a vast population, which 
agricultural ISfew Jersey must supply with many of the neces- 
sities of life. Those who work in the mills and factories can- 
not till the soil, and a State which has so well sustained itself 
in the past may find in the problem of supporting its non- 
agricultural residents a solution for some of the difficulties 
which now beset the agricultural elements of Now Jersey's 
population. 



22 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



NEW JERSEY. 



BY JOHN C. SMOCK, STATE GEOLOGIST. 



I. Geography and Physical Features. 

GEOGRAPHIC POSITION. 

T ^-^ A f 41" 21'22.G" 

^"*'*"^^ 1.38=' 55' 40" 

Longitude f 73° 53' 39" 

\ 75° 35' 00" 

EXTREME DIMENSIONS. 

Length 166 miles. 

Breadth 57 miles. 

AREA. 

Square miles 8,224.44 

Acres 5,263.641 

Land surface 4.809,218 acres. 

Water surface 454.423 " 

*Uplaud 4.494.507 " 

Tide-marsh 296,.500 " 

Beach (coastal dunes) 18,151 " 

**Forest 2.069.819 " 

Cleared upland 2.424.748 "' 

Improved land in farms 1,999.117 " 

I, New Jersey is on the Atlantic slope of the continent and 
is divided into four topographic zones: 1, the Appalachian 
zone, including the Kittatinny mountain and the Kittatinny 
valley; 2, the Highlands; 3, the Red Sandstone or Triasoic 
area ; and 4, the Coastal plain. 

These divisions are based on both the geology and the topog- 
raphy, the geologic stracture and the topographic features 
being closely related and explanatory of the surface configura- 
tion and conditions. Beginning at the northwest the Kitta- 

• Upland as distinRul.shed from tide-marsh, but including all swamp and fresh 
meadows. 
** Includes all lots of ten acres and upwards. 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 23 

tinny or Blue mountain is a remarkably level-topped and nar- 
row range, which extends across the State from the New York 
State line, where it is known as the Shawangunk mountain, to 
the Delaware river at the Delaware Water Gap. At High 
Point, near the northernmost point of the State, it is 1,804 
feet high, which is the greatest elevation of the State. This 
mountain range is rough, rocky and nearly all wooded. 

The Kittatinny valley, ten to thirteen miles wide, is shut 
in by the Kittatinny mountain on the northwest, and by the 
Highlands on the southeast. It is characterized by its high, 
rolling hills and minor valleys and its pleasing landscapes and 
beautiful farming country, which is continuous, on the north- 
east, with the valley of Orange county in New York, and to 
the southwest stretching away into the great Cumberland 
valley of the Atlantic slope of the continent. 

II. The Highlands occupy that part of the zone of crystal- 
line rocks which crosses New Jersey in a general north-north- 
east and south-southwest direction. Its surface is hilly-moun- 
tainous, and is made up of several parallel ridges, separated 
by deep and generally narrow valleys. The latter are like the 
Kittatinny valley — smooth — and are largely cleared and in 
farms. The mountain ranges are remarkably uniform in 
height, and this division may be considered as a seaward-slop- 
ing tableland, whose northwest side has an elevation of 1,000 
to 1,500 feet above the ocean, and its southeastern side 600 to 
900 feet above the sea. In the northern part there are several 
well-known lakes well up on the mountains — Hopatcong, 
Greenwood, Macopin, Splitrock, Green, Wawayanda and 
Budd's lakes are the more important of these natural upland 
sheets of water in the Highlands. 

III. The Piedmont plain, or the Red Sandstone plain, is 
made by the shales and sandstones of the Triasoic age. The 
Highlands stand on its northmost border; on the southeast it 
merges into the clays and marls of the Coastal plain. It is 
sixty-seven miles long and thirty miles wide at the Delaware 
river. The trap-rock ridges, known as Palisades, Watchung, 
Sourland, Cushetunk and other mountain ranges rise abruptly 



24 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK 

above the geucral level of the Sandstone plain. They are 
generally forested, whereas the sandstone country is nearly 
cleared and in farms. These mountains rise 400 to 900 feet 
above sea level. The drainage is largely by the Hackensack, 
Passaic and Earitan rivers and their tributaries. 

IV. The Coastal plain zone includes all the country south- 
east of the Triasoic Sandstone area and borders the ocean. 
It is 100 miles long from Sandy Hook to Salem and is ten to 
twenty miles wide. The surface is hilly in part, but with 
gentle slopes, except where some of the streams have cut their 
way through its earthy beds and formed steep-sided stream 
valleys. The Navesink Highlands and the Mount Pleasant 
hills are the highest lands in it. The drainage is by many 
tributaries westward with the Delaware, and by the Atlantic 
coast streams into the ocean. In the northwestern part of this 
zone there are clay-beds and greensand marls, which make the 
outcrop on the surface in places; on the southeast there are 
sands, clays and gravels and fringing the ocean a narrow range 
of sand hills or coastal dunes. 



II. Geological Formations. 

The study of the geologic structure and the mapping of 
the formations have been given a long-continued and steady 
support by the State. The first geological survey was or- 
dered by the Legislature of 1835, and was begun in 1836 
under the direction of the late Professor Henry D. Eogers. 
The results were published in 1836 and in 1840. In 1854 
the survey was re-organized by Governor Eodman M. Price, 
and William M. Kitchell was made State Geologist. It was 
continued until 1S")7, and annual reports were published. 
The Legislature of 1864 revived the survey, and the late Pro- 
fessor George H. Cook was, by the act of organization, consti- 
tuted State Geologist. The work has been carried forward 
under subsequent acts authorizing the continuance. 

The geologic structure of the State is so related to the 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 25 

Topography that the notes on the physical features give a clue 
to it. All of the larger geological formations of the United 
States, except the coal, occur in parallel zones, as indi- 
cated in the description of the topography. They run from 
northeast to southwest, and a section line across the State 
from Port Jervis southeast to the ocean crosses them nearly 
at right angles to their trend or direction. 

The oldest geological formations in the State are the crys- 
talline rocks of the Highlands. Granite, gneisses and other 
crystalline shistose rocks and beds of magnetic iron ore make 
up the mass of these mountain ranges. These rocks are gen- 
erally much tilted in position, almost on edge, and are also 
much faulted. They strike northeast and southwest and dip 
to the southeast or northwest. The iron ores and zinc ores 
which are mined in the State are found in these formations. 
The granite, gneiss and crystalline limestone or marble, used 
in building, are also from these Highland formations. 

The Paleozoic rocks are found in the valleys included in 
the Highlands, in the Kittatinny valley and Kittatinny moun- 
tain, and in the Green Pond and Copperas mountains. Cam- 
brian, Silurian and Devonian are represented, and the rocks 
are limestones, slates, sandstones and siliceous conglomerates. 
The magnesian limestones and the slates constitute wide belts 
in the Kittatinny valley, the Musconetcong, Pohatcong, Pe- 
quest and other valleys. The Kittatinny Mountain mass con- 
sists of sandstones and conglomerates of the Oneida and the 
Medina epochs of the Silurian age. In the valley of the 
Upper Delaware, west of this mountain, there are narrow 
Ix'lts of water-lime, Lower Helderberg and Upper Helder- 
hcvg, fossiliferous limestones, with Marcellus shale as the 
liighest member of the Devonian within the State. The 
Green Pond Mountain rocks also have been referred to the 
Oneida horizon. The limestones and slates are the forma- 
tions on which +he rich wheat lands of Warren county and 
the dairy farms of Sussex are situated. Stone for building, 
slate for roofing and flagging stone, and limestone for lime 
and cement, are quarried in the Paleozoic areas. Copper, 

C 



26 NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 

lead and zine ores, and barite, limonite, or bro^^Ti hematite, 
and glass sand have been worked in many localities. 

The red shales and sandstones and the included trap-rocks 
of the northern-central part of the State are referred to the 
Jura-Trias of Mesozoic time. The sandstone beds dip in 
general toward the northwest, at a low angle of inclination in 
the sandstone. The erupted trap-rocks form long ranges of 
steep-sloping hills or mountains, often crescentic in form. 
A great deal of excellent sandstone for building and stone for 
road-making is quarried in this formation. Copper ores were 
mined formerly at many places. These ores occur in the 
sandstone iiear the trap-rock or at their junction. Barite also 
has been mined in the sandstone at one locality. 

The Cretaceous rocks of the State include the clay district 
of Middlesex county and the greensand marl, which is so 
characteristic, developed in Monmouth and thence southwest 
to Salem. A large amount of clay is dug in the Raritan clay 
district for various uses. The greensand marl, dug in shallow 
pits generally, and in numberless localities, has had a wide use 
locally as a fertilizer. 

The formations of the Coastal Plain zone later than the 
Cretaceous Ix'ds, are greensand marls of the Eocene, clays and 
sands of the Miocene, and the clays, sands and gravels of the 
post Tertiary. They are recognized in a fourfold division, 
and are known as Beacon Hill, Bridgeton, Pensauken and 
Cape May formations. Clays and sands for brick, terra-cotta 
and pottery; marls for fertilizer; glass saiuls and gravel for 
road-building are dug in these formations. 

In the northern part of the State tlicrc are surfac(> forma- 
tions of glacial epochs, and the terminal moraine of the last 
glaoial ice is traced from Perth Amboy by ]\Iorristown and 
Hackettstown to Belvidere on the Delaware. 

Alluvial deposits of recent time are recognized in the river 
valleys and in the ^idal marshes and in some of the fresh- 
water swamps. 



U.G,2a)L0GICAL SURVEY 
NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



27 



mn^ 



III. Economic Geology. 

IRON ORES. 

The magnetic iron ores are the basis of the iron-mining 
industry. There are mines of limonite, or brown hematite, 
and of red hematite also, but at present they are not worked. 
There are about seventeen active iron mines, and in 1900 the 
output of these mines amounted to 342,390 gross tons. There 
are many mines which were not at work at all during the year, 
and many of them have been idle for several years. Ore in 
workable quantity has been found at many more localities. 
The large producing mines are in Morris and Warren coun- 
ties. The ores are used in furnaces in the Lehigh district of 
Pennsylvania or in the furnaces in the State. 

The manufacture of iron was begun in New Jersey as early 
as 1682, and at Tinton Falls, Monmouth county. Bog iron 
ores, dug in the southern parts of the State, were used up to 
the middle of the present century. The mines of the magnetic 
iron ores have yielded the greater part of the total production 
of the State, which is estimated to amount to 18,000,000 tons. 

ZINC ORES. 

The famous ore deposits at Ogdensburgh and Franklin 
Furnace, in Sussex county, continue to be worked. The out- 
put for 1900 was 194,881 tons. The ores are the red oxide, 
silicate and franklinite. 

Other localities where zinc blende occurs have been ex- 
ploited, but have not been developed into mines. 

COPPER ORES. 

Copper ores are widely distributed in the red sandstone 
district. The Schuyler mine, at Arlington, the Plainfield, 
Bridgewater and Flemington mines and others have been 
worked. The Schuyler mine is being reopened, and the mine 



28 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

near Somerville and works for the working of the ores are 
being erected. 

Lead, in the form of galena, has been mined in Sussex 
county. Arsenical and nickeliferous pyrites also occur, 
but not to any workable extent as thus far opened in a few 
localities. 

graphite, plumbago, black lead. 

Graphite is disseminated widely in the crystalline schistose 
rocks of the Highlands. Mines have been opened and worked, 
irregularly, at Blooraingdale, High Bridge, and near Peapack. 

MoLBYDENUM occurs in form of molybdic sulphide at the 
Ogden mines and at the Hude mine, Sussex county, but is not 
worked. 

barite, barytes, heavy spar. 

Barite has been found in quantity for mining near Newton 
and at Hopewell. 

CLAYS. 

Fire-clay, stoneware clay or potter's clay, paper clay, terra- 
cotta clays, pipe clay and brick clays are dug extensively. The 
Earitan clay district is justly famed for its numerous and 
large pits, the superior quality of its clays and their extensive 
use, both in the large establishments located in the district and 
outside wherever tire-clay or ware clay is in demand. The large 
openings are near Woodbridge, Perth Amboy, Sand Hills, 
South Amboy, Sayrevillc and Chcsquake. Clays for ware and 
for terra-cotta are obtained near Trenton, at Palmyra, and at 
other points in the clay belts of the State. Fire-clays are dug 
nc^ar Wheatland and Winslow, and there are large clay works 
at Winslow. There arc still other localities which produce 
some clays for local manufacturing, and in the southern part 
of the State. Brick -earth, or brick-clay, is found in thick beds 
along the Raritan river and Raritan bay, along the Delaware, 
on the Hackcnsack, and there arc very large brickyards on 
these navigable, tidal waters, which make a large part of the 
brick used in structural work in New York and Philadelphia. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 29 

Fire-sand, 'kaolin and feldspar, as well as fire-clay, are also 
dug extensively in tlie Raritan clay district and put into fire- 
brick. 

GLASS-SAND. 

Sand for glass is found at many localities in the southern 
part of the State, and is used in the glass-houses at Millville, 
Salem, Bridgeton, Glassboro, Clayton and other places, and is 
.shipped to distant points on the Atlantic coast, from New 
England to the South. The deposits are apparently inex- 
haustible. 

BUILDING-STONE. 

Reference has been made to the occurrence of granites, trap- 
rocks and sandstones in some of the geologic formations. 
Granite has been quarried at Charlottenburg, in Morris 
county, and Pochuck mountain, in Sussex county. Gneisses, 
for heavy bridge work, are quarried at Dover, and at other 
localities as demand calls for them. 

Sandstone quarries at Avondale, Newark, Paterson, Little 
Falls, Haledon, in the eastern part of the State, and at Stock- 
ton and Greensburg, or Wilburtha, on the Delaware river, are 
well known as producing localities of brownstone for cut 
work. The occurrence of trap-rock so widely distributed, and 
so accessible to railway and canal lines, is making the output 
of trap-rock an increasing one, on account of its excellence 
for State roads. 

The marbles of the State are not at present worked. 

Slate for roofing has been quarried at the Delaware Water 
Gap, and at Newton and Lafayette, in Sussex county. The 
Newton quarry is now worked. 

Flagging-stone quarries are opened near Deckertown, in 
Sussex county; at Milford, on the Delaware, and at Woods- 
ville, in Mercer county. The Green Pond Mountain range 
also affords a flagstone. 

Limestone, suitable for the manufacture of Portland ce- 
ment, is quarried extensively near Phillipsburg, in Warren 
countv. 



30 XEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

Lime is made from limestone in large quantities at McAfee 
Valley, Sussex county, and at other points in the northern 
part of the State. 

The natural fertilizers, as greensand marl, white calcareous 
marls, muck or peat, are common. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Infusorial earth occurs in workable quantity near Drakes- 
ville, Morris county. 

Manganese ore has been mined near Clinton, Hunterdon 
county. 

Two mines for mica have been 0]^>ened, both in Warren, 
county. 

Steatite occurs in Marble mountain, and in Jenny Jump 
mountain, in Warren county. 

Apatite, with magnetite, makes a large deposit near Ferro- 
mont, Morris county. 




^t^^,'"- 







NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 31 



EDUCATION. 



BY J. BROGXAKD BETTS, ASSISTANT STATE SUPERINTENDENT. 



HISTOKICAL. 

The records of the schools of New Jersey during the early 
days of its existence as a colony are very meagre, but it is 
probable that the first schoolmaster, certainly the first in the 
eastern part of the State, was Englebart Steenliuysen. He 
taught in what was then known as the "Town of Bergen," 
now a part of Jersey City. The school was established in 
1662. Steenliuysen was also a minister, and on Sundays 
preached in the same building in which, on other days, 
he taught the parents of those who did so much to make 
our State what it is to-day — the pride of all its sons. The 
site on which this first school-house was erected is still used 
for school purposes, and from that humble beginning has 
grown what is known as Public School No. 11 of Jersey City, 
with its twenty-four teachers and its accommodations for one 
thousand pupils. 

This school was supported by tax, and was the cause of 
litigation in 1672, some residents of outlying districts refus- 
ing to pay their portion of the tax for its support, until com- 
pelled by the courts, on the ground that the school was too 
far removed to be of any benefit to them. 

About ten years later the first school, of which there is any 
record, was established in Newark. This school was main- 
tained by subscriptions, and the schoolmaster was authorized 
to charge tuition fees for the children of residents who had 
not subscribed to the support of the school. 

Other schools were established in East Jersey about this 
period, among them being those at Woodbridge, Perth Amboy, 
Elizabethtown, Freehold and Piscataway. 



32 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

The first school established in West Jersey, of which there 
is any record, was at Burlington in 1683. The income de- 
rived from the revenues of an island in the Delaware, opposite 
the town, were set apart to defray the expenses of the school. 
The fund thus established is still in existence, and the in- 
come appropriated for public school purposes. 

The first legislation relative to public schools was in 1G93. 
when an act was passed authorizing the inhabitants in the 
several towns and townships to establish schools and main- 
tain the same by taxation. 

In 1817 the Legislature enacted a law creating a school 
fund, the income from which was to be devoted exclusively 
to school purposes. This fund was under the control of the 
Governor, the Vice President of the Council, the Speaker of 
the Assembly, the Attorney- General and the Secretary of 
State. Certain United States bonds, bank stocks and other 
securities were set apart for the fund. In 1871 the moneys 
received from the sale and rental of lands under Avater owned 
by the State were made a part of the fund. By an amend- 
ment to the. State Constitution the principal of the fund 
must be kept invested and the income devoted exclusively to 
the support of free public schools. The principal of the 
fund now amounts to $3,690,682. 02, and $200,000 of the 
income is appropriated annually for the support of public 
schools. The fund is now under the control of the "Trustees 
of the Fund for the Support of Free Schools," the board 
being composed of the Governor, Attorney-General, Secretary 
of State, State Comptroller and State Treasurer. 

In 1820 the Legislature autliorized the several townships 
to levy a tax for llie education of "such poor diildrrn as are 
paupers, belonging to the said township, and the cliihlren of 
such poor parents, resident in said townsliip, as are or sliall be, 
in ilic judgment of said connnitlcc, unablt^ lo pay for scliooling 
tlu' same." Tliis law remained in force for some years, being 
amended, from time to time, and in such a manner as to pro- 
vide for free schools for sucli time as the moneys received 
IVom tlic seliool fund and from local taxation would permit, 



XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 33 

and allowing tuition fees for the remainder of the year, but 
it was not until 1871 that legislation was had providing for 
a State school tax, and making the schools absolutely free to 
all the children in the State. 

PRESENT SCHOOL SYSTEM. 

There is a State Board of Education, appointed by the 
Governor and confirmed by the Senate. The board is com- 
posed of two members from each Congressional district, who 
shall not belong to the same political party. The term of 
office is five years. The members serve without compensa- 
tion, but are paid the a-etual expenses incurred by them in 
the discharge of their official duties. 

This board appoints the County Superintendents of 
Schools, makes rules for the holding of teachers' institutes, 
the examination of teachers and for carrying into effect the 
School laws of the State. It has the control and manage- 
ment of the State jSTormal School, the School for the Deaf, 
the Farnum Preparatory School, and the Manual Training 
and Industrial School for Colored Youth. 

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction is ap- 
pointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate. His 
term of office is three years and liir^ salary is $3,000 per 
annum. He has general supervision over the schools, and, by 
law, is made a court of limited jurisdiction, having the power 
to investigate and decide, sul)ject to appeal to the State Board 
of Education, all disputes that arise under the School laws, 
and may enforce his decision by withholding all school moneys 
from the district until his decision has been obeyed. He is, 
ex-officio, the Secretary of the State Board of Education, 
and is a member of the State Board cf Examiners and of all 
local boards of examiners. 

The County Superintendents have supervision over the 
schools ill their respective counties, apportion the school 
moneys, license teachers, and, together with the local boards 
^f education, prescribe the courses of study for their respect- 



34 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

ive counties. Their salaries are paid by the State and range 
from $1,000 to $1,300 per annum. In addition to their 
salaries they are allowed their actual expenses to an amount 
not exceeding $350 per annum. The term of office is three 
years. 

The State Normal School is located at Trenton and was 
established in 1855. There is, in connection with it, a Model 
School, which affords to the pupils in the Normal School an 
opportunity for practice teaching. The number of pupils 
enrolled in the Normal School is 639 and the number in the 
Model School is 568. The law requires that each graduate of 
the Normal School shall pledge himself to teach in this State 
for at least two years after graduation. This pledge is more 
than fulfilled, for during the last year 1,181 graduates of the 
school were teaching in the State. The total expenses of 
the school last year amounted to $74,708. 

The School for the Deaf is located in Trenton and was 
established in 1882. Prior to that date the deaf children 
were educated at the expense of the State in institutions in 
New York and Pennsylvania. The number of pupils is 155, 
and the cost of maintenance was $38,993. 

The Farnum Preparatory School is an adjunct of the State 
Normal School and is located at Beverly. It was built by 
Paul Farnum and presented by him to the State. In his will 
he gave the school an endowment of $20,000. The number 
of pupils enrolled last year was 149, and the cost of mainte- 
nance $5,780. 

The Manual Training and Industrial School for Colored 
Youth, located at Bordento^vn, was established in 1894, and 
was under the care of a separate Board of Trustees. In 1900 
it was placed under the care of the State Board of Education. 
There were enrolled last year 118 pupils, and the cost of 
maintenance was $5,354. 

The entire State is divided into school districts, each city, 
town and township constituting a separate district. There 
are two classes of districts, viz., municipalities divided into 
wards and municipalites not divided into wards. The first 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 35 



class includes the cities and large towns. In these distn«ts 
members of the boards of education may be appointed by the 
Mayor or elected by the people. The amount of money to be 
appropriated locally for the support of schools is determined 
by the Board of School Estimate, consisting of the Mayor, 
two members of the financial board in the municipality and 
two members of the Board of Education. The second class 
includes the townships and small boroughs. In these dis- 
tricts the members of the boards of education are elected and 
all appropriations are made by direct vote of the people. By 
the law boards of education are made bodies corporate, and 
are not a part of the municipal government. 

The Legislature, recognizing the value of manual training, 
passed a law in 1881 providing that whenever a school dis- 
trict established a manual training school or added manual 
training to the course of study pursued in the public schools 
of the district, the State would appropriate each year an 
amount equal to the sum raised in the district for that pur- 
pose; provided, that the total annual appropriation by the 
State to a district should not exceed $5,000. Under this law 
two cities have established manual training schools and 
twenty-four districts have added manual training to their 
courses of study. The total amount appropriated by the State 
last year for manual training was $46,000. 

The State gives to each school annually $10, provided 
such school raises a like sum, to be used for the purchase of ap- 
paratus or to maintain a library for the use of the pupils ; also 
to each county a sum not exceeding $100 annually, upon like 
conditions, for the purpose of providing pedagogical libraries 
for the use of the teachers. One thousand five hundred and 
one schools and all the counties, with one exception, have 
established libraries under the provisions of this law. 

In order that the health of the children may be protected 
the law provides that all school-houses shall have at least 
eighteen square feet of floor space and two hundred cubic 
feet of air space per pupil ; that the light area must equal at 
least twenty per cent, of floor space; that there must be an 



36 XEW JEESEY HAXD-BOOK. 

approved system of ventilation and that the light must be 
admitted only from the left and rear of class-rooms. In 
order that these provisions of the law shall be obeyed, all 
plans for school-houses must be submitted to the State Board 
of Education for approval. 

Each district is also authorized to employ a medical in- 
spector, whose duty it shall be to look after the sanitary 
condition of the school property, to inspect the pupils and to 
give instruction to the teachers. 

The Constitution provides that the State shall provide free 
education for all children between the ages of five and eigh- 
teen years, but the Legislature, recognizing the value of 
kindergarten and higher education, has provided that chil- 
dren between the ages of four and twenty years may be ad- 
mitted to the public schools. 

Funds for the support of public schools are derived from 
iive sources, viz. : State school fund, State fund, State school 
tax, interest of surplus revenue and local tax. 

The income of the State school fund, as has been heretofore 
stated, amounts to $200,000 per annum. 

Appropriations from the State fund are made for the sev- 
eral institutions under the care of the State Board of Educa- 
tion, the expenses of the Department of Public Instruction, 
the salaries of County Superintendents, manual training, 
school and teachers' libraries, and for the support of public 
schools. The appropriation for the last item is to reduce the 
amount of the State school tax, and, by law, cannot be less 
than $100,000. The State school tax hereafter will be two 
and three-fourths mills. For the current year it is .00256,. 
and the appropriation from the State fund, as a part of 
the tax for the current year, is 35 per cent, of the tax, or 
over $800,000, so that the actual State tax for school pur- 
poses paid Ijy each taxpayer is reduced from $2.56 to $1.67 
on each $1,000. of ratables. The State fund is derived from 
taxes on corporations, there being no tax on the people for 
State purposes, so that the a])propriation of $800,000 from 
this finid is an actual saving, to (hat amount, to the people of 
the State. 



NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 



The interest of the surplus revenue amounts to about 
$34,000 per annum, and is the income derived from moneys 
received from the United States in 1836, when the surplus 
in the United States treasury was divided among the States. 

Local taxes may be assessed for current expenses, for 
school buildings and for any other purpose connected with 
the public schools of the district. 

]\Ioneys received by the school districts from the funds 
above mentioned, except local tax, can be used only for teach- 
ers' salaries and fuel, and are apportioned as follows: For 
each Supervising Principal, $600 ; for each teacher, $200, 
and the balance on the total days' attendance of all the 
pupils enrolled in the public schools of the district during 
the year. In order to encourage the consolidation of the 
schools in the rural districts and the establishing of graded 
schools, $200 is apportioned to each district which closes a 
small school and transports the pupils to another school, 
thereby dispensing with the services of a teacher. This 
apportionment is made annually as long as the pupils are 
transported. This provision has been the means of closing 
a number of schools which had an average attendance of 
fifteen or less, and, in addition to giving such pupils far 
better school advantages, has resulted in a substantial finan- 
cial saving to the districts. 

The number of school-houses in the State is 1,875, and 
the number of class-rooms 6,408, providing accommodations 
for 310,328 pupils. The value of the school property is 
$15,634,471. 

There are employed in the public schools 907 male teachers, 
at an average annual salary of ^SC)6, and 6,105 female teach- 
ers, at an average annual salary of $500. Of the 7,102 
teachers, 3,415 have had a Xormal training and 409 arc 
college graduates. 

There were enrolled in the public schools last year 322,575 
and in private schools 47,453, making the total number of 
children in school 370,028, or 81 per cent, of the children in 
the State. The average daily attendance in the public schools 



38 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

was 207,947. The average time our schools were kept open 
was 186 days. 

The total amount of bonded indebtedness of the school 
districts is $3,733,982. 

The following is a summary of the finances of the public 
schools for the school year ending June 30th, 1900 : 

RECEIPTS. 

State school tax $2,333,706.00 

Local tax 3,779,151.65 

Interest of surplus revenue 33,386.61 

District school bonds 581,733.23 

Other sources 166,324.23 

DISBURSEMENTS. 

Teachers' salaries $3,805,482.42 

Building and repairing school-houses 1,265.170.10 

Fuel and other current expenses 1,073,283.64 

Debt and interest 391.116.84 

Manual training 88,944.99 

Text-books and apparatus 314,321.15 

Expenses of State and county supervision. . 42,436.89 

Libraries 11,380.00 

Miscellaneous expenses 4,159.75 



40 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

'sand-flats.' Where has our contemporary lived? If he will 
visit the editor of this paper, at Morristown, we will open to 
him a new world and cause him, temporaril}^ to regret that 
fate ordered him to live elsewhere. Sand-flats, indeed !" 

The surface of the State is varied; the southern counties 
are comparatively level; the intermediate section, rolling, in- 
clined to hilly; the northern, hilly to mountainous. The 
mountainous regions are growing in popularity as summer 
resorts — cool, picturesque, healthful. 

Mr. Will Bogart Hunter writes of Lake Hopatcong and the 
region surrounding it, as published in the Newark Sunday 
News, April 21st, 1901, as follows: 

"About none of the lakes of the continent or of the world 
that is called New is there more of history, more of romance, 
more of song. Created by the Great Glacier, its rugged shores 
tell to the student the story of the formation of the world. 

"Here the red man builded his home before the India-seek- 
ing ships of Spain turned westward from Palos. He it was 
who gave to it its musical name and who christened the 
mountains and the valleys and the singing streams. 

"Within an hour's journey, in mountain fastnesses just like 
these, the tattered remnant of the army of freedom beat back 
the red-coats of England. Among these same hills iron was 
first made in the new world to be hurled from American guns 
against the hosts of Britain." 

Such is the story of one New Jersey lake. The others are 
no less interesting in historic association. 

In Morris, Sussex and Warren counties more lake beauty 
can be found than in almost any State in the Union. Within 
their borders are more than fifty lakes, nestling and hiding 
away in the mountains. About '^^eir shores are 200,000 acres 
of virgin forest. 

H,undreds of visitors seek these picturesque parts and idle 
away the long summer days in the cool shade of hemlock 
and i)ine. Yet it can never be said of the lakes that they are 
overcrowded. 

A tired city man can lisli or loaf and smoke on the shores 



XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 41 

of a Xortliern Xew Jersey lake and see not a soul from morn- 
ing till night. 

Or, if he wants society instead of solitude, he can find it 
within easy walking distance. 

Xew Jersey's lakes are so many and so profuse in the at- 
tractions they hold out to visitors that they can take good care 
of all who go to see them. They appeal to the fisherman, to 
the man trying to forget, to the mountain climber and above 
all to the nature lover. 

Men and women come from all corners of America to find 
pleasant vacations beside the placid waters of Morris, Sussex 
and Warren. 

The long stretch of seaside, bordering the entire eastern 
coast of the State from Sandy Hook to Cape May, is famous 
the world over for its facilities for summer sea-bathing, rec- 
reation, rest and health. The multitudes of people who 
annually visit the sections na«ied add largely to our con- 
suming population, and thus a nearby market is afforded for 
farmers, market gardeners and milk and poultry producer-. 

Further exceptional markets are the great cities — Xew 
York and Philadelphia. 

And the State itself, in the density of its population per 
square mile, is third as compared with other States in the 
Union. 

Are these markets easy of access? Xo State in the Unior 
has a better system of hard roads, and no other has such a net- 
work of railroads. (See article on Transportation Facilities.) 

We are quite sure that Xew Jersey, situated, as it is, be- 
tween the cities named, affords an exceptional opportunity 
for young men and young women of energy and purpose for 
success in agricultural work. 

Farms in good condition and lands for colonization pur- 
poses may be secured at very reasonable prices, so that it is 
not necessary for intelligent home-seekers to bury themselves 
in regions remote from the seaboard, remote from schools, 
churches, social and other advantages in the newer West and 
South. 



42 XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 

Any one who is willing to wr)rk and A\ho will work intelli- 
gently any of New Jersey's productive soils, need not suffer 
for the good things of this life in their season. And a 
judicious expenditure of lalior and capital will be rewardovi 
with a reasonable profit. 

Climatic conditions maintain an equilibrium that is con- 
ducive to health, both in summer and in Avinter. Our summer 
resorts are winter sanitariums as well. Atlantic City, Cape 
May and Lakewood in the Pines are notable examples. (For 
climatic conditions in detail, see article by Professor E. W. 
McGann.) 

rnUIT IXDUSTEY. 

Peaches. While peaches are produced in nearly all parts of 
the State and are quite generally grown for local market or 
home use, the sections devoted to the business, as a market 
industry, are chiefly in the northwestern part of the State. 
This particular division would be marked by a line beginning 
north of Trenton, thence to Summit, Caldwell, Pompton and 
Ringwood; of this section Sussex and Hunterdon counties 
lead. A conservative estimate places the value of the crop of 
1900 at $1,100,000, although dry weather reduced the yield 
and value materially. 

Apples are jjroduccd in most farms, but are more profit- 
ably grown in the northern half of the State above Trenton 
^nd in the western ])art of Burlington and Gloucester counties. 

Fears. Monmouth, Camden and parts of Burlington and 
Gloucester grow immense 'quantities of pears. These are the 
•chief market sections. This fruit, however, is an easy grower 
in most localities where apples and peaches flourish. 

Straivherries, Raspberries and Blackberries are encouraged 
to profitable production wherever a nearby market is found, 
hut the large commercial acreage of these fruits is in the 
counties of Cumberland, Atlantic and Salem. 

Cranberries. The large plantations of this healthful fruit 
are chiefly within Ocean and (eastern) Burlington counties. 
The natural requirements of this plant of suitable soil and 



XEW JEPtSEY HA?^D-BOOK. 43 

svifficient water must bo met, and, where nature has not pro- 
vided them, the grower must create them. The business re- 
quires careful management. 

Grapes are extensively grown in Atlantic county, parts of 
Cape May and Cumberland. The unfermented juice of the 
grape, as put up at Yineland, Cumberland county, has an 
extensive market. In a recent year in the vicinity of Egg 
Harbor, Atlantic county, 35,000 gallons of ^vine were manu- 
factured, and in 1893 100,000 gallons. 

A conservative estimate of the areas devoted to small fruits 
in flammonton, Atlantic county, and vicinity is : Blackber- 
ries, 27,000 acres; strawberries, 900 acres; raspberries, 800 
acres; grapes, 400 acres; peaches, 200 acres; cranberries, 300 
acres — over 5,000 acres in that one locality. There are also 
large acreages in the townships of Galloway, Mullica, Hamil- 
ton and Egg Harbor. 

Plum-culture is increasing and many tons are annually put 
on the market in our fruit-growing sections. 

Cherries, too, are a profitable crop, and are gro^^■n on most 
fruit soils. One farmer in the vicinity of Newark, who pro- 
duces them with other fruit for market, sold at a very profit- 
able price 120,000 pounds of this fruit in a single season. 

Currants also grow well, and have a good market. 

Hucl-leherries grow spontaneously in the wooded areas of 
the State, especially in the southern part, where forest trees 
are not so tall as to prevent their development. Millions of 
quarts of this fruit are annually gathered and marketed, and 
are a source of profit to owners and pickers. 



.*- POULTRY. 

The lighter or sandy soils of Xcw Jersey furnish id^al 
natural conditions for the poultry business. Porous, always 
clean, soon dry after rain, with a climate, in the soutliPrn 
part of the State especially, comparatively mild, and fine 
markets, no better location exists; and the business is large 
and growing. 



44 NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 

The census of 1890 gives the State in round numbers 
3,000,000 chickens; other fowls, 300,000, with an annual pro- 
duction of eggs in excess of 8,000,000 dozen. 

WHITE AND SWEET POTATOES. 

White potatoes are a staple crop in man}' counties of tlic 
State. The acreage in 1900 was 48,435, with a total yield of 
3,342,015 bushels. But 1900 was a very unfavorable year for 
this crop. With favoring weather the crop reaches 4,250,000 
bushels. Total value of crop for same year, at 69 cents per 
bushel, was $3,342,015. (Report United States Department 
of Agriculture, 1900.) 

The sweet potato is grown for market chiefly in the south- 
ern counties; Gloucester county producing more than any 
other. The annual yield in round numbers is 2,500,'JOO 
bushels. 

TRUCK FARMING. 

If we were asked to separate the agricultural interests of 
the State into three divisions they would be dairying, truck 
and fruit farming and poultry. Truck farming in New Jer- 
sey, owing to its proximity to large consuming populations, 
is immense, and a large proportion of the yearly product is 
conveyed to market by the farmers' teams in his own truck 
Avagon. During summer and autumn fifteen hundred teams, 
loaded with New Jersey fruit and produce, cross the Canulen 
and Gloucester ferries daily into Philadelphia, and a similar 
traffic prevails in the neighborhood of New York City, Jersey 
City and Newark. Gloucester, Cimiberland and Burlington 
counties devote large acreages to the production of water- 
melons and cantaloupes, or muskmelons, of fine quality. 

Being brought to perfection before sliipping, their texture 
and flavor exceeds that of those brought to our nortliern 
markets from the far South. And the Hackensack musk- 
melons have a reputation for richness not surpassed by the 
far-distant Colorado fruit. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 45 



MARKET GARDENING. 

Market gardening is a still more intensive form of crop pro- 
duction than truck farming, as the latter is than general 
farming. In this several crops are grown on the same area in 
a single year. Although this form of intensive farming in- 
volves much more labor and expense per acre, and a more 
exact experience, coupled with intelligent managment, the 
profits are correspondingly larger. As compared with general 
farming, the returns from the two branches named are as five 
to one at least. 

The growth of Philadelphia has made much of the land 
adjacent thereto too valuable to be used for gardening, and 
many of the small truckers from the Pennsylvania side have 
moved to New Jersey, where they secured land at lower rent, 
with a soil better adapted to their business. 

The great system of New Jersey's macadam roads has ex- 
tended the area of market gardening from twelve to fifteen 
miles from the cities, and land can be obtained at low prices 
in good localities, where every facility is afforded to enable 
an enterprising man to secure a good home and make truck 
farming profitable. Land that has long been used only for 
general farming responds readily to the liberal use of fertili- 
zers, and the culture required to raise market garden crops 
and some of the results from such cheap farms have been re- 
markable. Within short distances of railroad stations, within 
the lines of free mail delivery and from twelve to fifteen miles 
from Philadelphia land can be bought from $40 to $75 per 
acre. Produce can be shipped to New York by rail or easily 
carted to Philadelphia. Eelatively tlie same conditions pre- 
vail in the neighborhood of New York City and the cities of 
New Jersey northward from Elizabeth. 

FLOKICULTURE, SEED FARMS, NURSERIES. 

In commercial floriculture New Jersey, situated, as it is, 
between New York and Philadelphia city markets, makes the 
largest showing of any State in the Union in proportion to its 



46 XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

size. The figures of census of 1900 not being available at this 
writing, we give those of 1890 : 

Of florists' establishments we have 368; owned and man- 
aged by women, 8. Tot^l square feet of glass, 3,703,554. 

Total value of establishments f3,666,518 46 

Total value of tools and implements 155,107 14 

In these are propagated : 

Roses 1,808,014 

Hardy plants 4,006,602 

All other plants 12,912,114 

Total 22,726,730 

Plants sold, value $897,908 58 

Cut flowers sold, value 1,288,478 56 

Total value $2,186,387 14 

Of seed farms the State lias thirty-four, comprising an acre- 
age of 6,273. 

Total value of farms implements and buildings $2,333,066 68 

Farms devoted to the nursery business number 145, with a 
total acreage of 5,465. 

Total value of nurseries $1,712,464 75 

Total capital invested 1,970,593 90 

THE DAIRY. 

While, in a gciUT;il way. dairying is carried on throughout 
the eniire State, every farnu^r having some cows, the industry, 
commercially, is restricted to certain sections, and these arc 
divided into two classes — those that cater to a local trade in 
our towns and cities, and those who ship the product to dis- 
tant markets by railroad or dispose of it in co-operative or 
other nearby creameries. 

The location of the larger towns and cities, as laid down on 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 47 

the map of the State, will indicate the districts and markets 
of the first-named class. The latter, those who sell to the 
creameries and in distant markets, shipping by railroad, are 
chiefly in the western part of the State. If sold at 2i^ cents 
per quart, this industry gives a return to the dairymen of the 
State of nearly $9,000,000 annually. But all milk sold from 
the dairyman's wagon and much of that that is produced in 
our larger commercial dairies is sold at from 6 to 8 cents per 
quart. Could we have exact returns from all these, the total 
sum would be much larger than that given. Tlie industry is 
increasing in the State from year to year. 

MIXED FARMING. 

Having specified, briefly, the special agricultural and horti- 
cultural opportunities existing in the State, it should be said 
that the majority of farmers practice, to a greater or less ex- 
tent, a mixed husbandry. With such a variety of soils avail- 
able, diversity of production is easily possible, and, for the 
average farmer possessing limited means and limited ex- 
perience and knowledge, this, usually, is the safer course to 
follow. 

Special branches — unless like dairying, which covers the 
entire year — if not properly managed, are liable to leave a 
portion of the year barren of returns. The study of every 
farmer should be to have something coming in every month in 
the year, for something must go out constantly for mainte- 
nance. A line of the special industries, if desired, can be 
chosen, so as to obviate the barrenness indicated. Whatever 
line of work is decided upon should govern, somewhat, the 
character of the soil and location to l)c chosen — having always 
an eye for the best market for the crop to be produced. 

The map published with this manual will be of much assist- 
ance in guiding settlers to a location suited to their purpose. 
A person unacquainted with a (to him) new locality, will also 
find that a visit of inspection, during the growing season, lo a 
neighborhood in which he tliinks of locating, will be of great 



48 XEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

advantage to him in determining as to the character of the 
soils and the crops and varieties that are the most profitable 
there. 

CROP AND STOCK VALUES. 

Excluding from our estimate land values, buildings, fences 
and machinery, all fruit crops, market garden and truck fann- 
ing crops, and sweet potatoes, poultry, eggs, pork, lambs and 
wool, the following table shows the gross total value of horses, 
mules, cattle and sheep, with the earnings of the dairies, and 
the crops of wheat, corn, rye, oats, buckwheat, hay and white 
potatoes produced in I^ew Jersey in 1900, with also the num- 
ber and value of farm animals. These figures are made up 
from reports of Secretaries of County Boards and other 
prominent farmers throughout the State. 

TABLE I. 

Average farm 

Average yield Production, price per bu. Farm value 

Crops. Acreage, per acre. Bushels Dec. l.st. Dec. 1st. 

Com 257,364 33 8,493,012 $0 46 $3,906,785 

Wheat 122,753 22 2,700,566 74 1,998,418 

Rye 64,717 18 1,164,906 55 640,698 

Oats 95,003 29.6 2,812,089 31 871,747 

Buckwheat 10,005 16 160,080 59 94,447 

Hay 396,113 1] tons 495,141 tons. 16 00 7,922,256 

W. Potatoes.... 48,435 69 bu. 3,312 015 bu. 60 2,005,209 

S. Potatoes 173 bu. 2,500,000 bu. 56 1,300,000 

Total value $18,739,560 

Numbers Average price 

Stock. Jau. 1, 1901. per hoad. Values. 

Horses. 79,972 $95 00 $7,597,340 

Mules 7,196 105 00 755,580 

Milch Cows 223,261 40 00 8,930,440 

Other cattle 39,896 32 00 1,276,672 

Sheep 42,722 4 00 190,521 

Tot-il value 18,756,553 

Assuming that the annual product per cow is 1,600 quarts, and 
making the average price 2J cents per quart, would give 
357,217,600 quarts, value 8,930,410 

Total value of the above crops for the State $46,426,553 



A;t^*^./r<A^'> r '^^iu'^^-r -'^'■•^•■ 








. . '' T V • '- 'IF 'V ''4 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



49 



From United States Department Agriculture Crop Eeport 
for 1901, Division of Statistics, Hon. John Hyde, Statistician, 
the following figures are given : 

Average farm 

Average yield Production, price per bu. Farm value 

Crops. Acreage, per acre. Bushels. Dec. Ist. Dec. 1st. 

Cora 257,364 33 8,493,012 $0 45 |3,821,855 

Wheat 122,753 19.1 2,344,582 74 1,734,991 

Rye 64,717 15.9 1,029,000 55 565,950 

Oats 95,003 29.6 2,812,089 31 871,748 

Buckwheat 10,005 16 160,080 59 94,487 

Hay 396,113 1.26 499,102 16 05 8,010,587 

W. Potatoes 48,435 69 3,342,015 60 2 005,209 

Total value $17,104,827 



50 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 



OUTLINE OF COUNTY HISTORY, 
SOILS AND PRODUCTS. 



ATLANTIC COUNTY. 

This county was formed from the eastern part of Gloucester 
in 1837, and is about thirty miles long by twenty wide. Sev- 
eral navigable streams run through the county. Clams, 
oysters and tish abound in the bays and inlets. Its coast line 
is dotted with a number of noted summer resorts, among them 
being Atlantic City, which has, within a few years, gained a 
national reputation. 

A portion of the pine region of Xew Jersey formerly e\'- 
tended over most of this county, and agriculture was but little 
pursued in its earlier history. The seacoast towns, having 
sprung up, creating a demand for small fruits, vegetables and 
poultry products, thousands of acres have been cleared, which 
are occupied by a thrifty and industrious population, and parts 
of the once so-called sandy desert now affords a comfortable 
livelihood for willing workers. 

Dairying, almost unknown in this county a few decades ago, 
is increasing, but is unal)le to supply the demands in the 
summer season, and the popular resorts continue to receive 
milk from more distant points. Poultry-raising is also in- 
creasing. The demand for sjjring chickens and fresh-laid eggs 
affords a good market at the very doors of producers. 

Grape-culture has for years been extensively followed, and 
many thousand gallons of excellent wine are made annually, 
besides the large quantity of grapes sold. Here, also, berries 
of different kinds flourish. Strawberries, perhaps, lead, yet 
rasplierries and Ijlackbcrries are grown in large quantities for 
the home and citv markets. The cranberrv, in some locali- 





4 






Nt;k- 


# 


¥'j 


^^^T -i^ 


JL^ 


_gl^v 


lg| 


i^yyi 



Georgetown Road, Burlington County. (Before Improvement.) 




The abuvc AUcr 1 liiiiiu\ eiiicnt. 



NEW JEESEY HAXD-BOOK. Si- 



ties, is a staple crop. Apples and pears, with proper cultiva- 
tion, thrive well. Potatoes, both white and sweet, are exten- 
sively grown, the sweets being a leading crop. And. in 
addition to the usnal garden vegetables, tomatoes are grown to' 
snpply the several large canning establishments within the 
county. 

BURLIXGTOX COUXTY. 

The bounds of Burlington county were first established in 
1694, but its original limits were reduced in 1710 by the for- 
mation of Hunterdon, which made the Assanpink (running 
through the city of Trenton) its northern boundary. It is 
the only county that reaches across the width of the State. 
It is of alluvial formation, comprised of sand, graveL loam 
and clay; the surface generally level or undulating. 

This county has within its bounds many of the finest farms 
in the State and highly cultivated. In past years its fertility 
was greatly increased by the use of marl, which abounds there. 

The leading farm industry is dairying, and the numerous 
railroads, especially in the western half, make the Philadel- 
phia markets accessible to large numbers, and tlie receipts 
from this product amount to many thousands annually. Three 
creameries are also located at convenient points. 

Another important crop is the tomato. I^arge quantities 
are consumed in the towns along the western border, in addi- 
tion to those sent to the larger cities, and, in addition to these 
outlets, there are five canning factories that use the entire 
yield of several hundred acres. One cannery devoted to can- 
ning peas and beans has proven quite successful. 

Another special feature of this county is the large quantity 
of pork raised and marketed. For many years a large red 
breed has been favored, and is now widely known as '"'Jersey 
Red." Corn, oats, wheat and grass grow well : the former, on 
well-cultivated farms, giving immense yiekl. All leading 
fruits abound, and, such varieties as are adapted to location, 
give good retiirns. 

Xear the west side, along the Delaware river, truck farming^ 



52 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

is extensively practiced, and a few acres often return more 
money than large farms. The eastern part of the county is a 
sandy plain, covered largely with pine and scrub oak ; the soil 
is light and of little value for strictly agricultural purposes. 
Large deposits of superior quality of clay are here found, 
■suitable for ornamental brick and terra-cotta work. 

In the midst of these sandy and pine barrens are located 
many thousands of acres of valuable cranberry bogs, which, 
in the past few years, have proved to be a profitable depart- 
ment of fruit-raising, the berries being in large demand in all 
parts of the middle West and in California. This industry 
"has made this pine district more valuable than some of the 
highly-cultivated farms that lie a short distance therefrom. 

CAMDEN COUNTY. 

This county was formed in 1844 from the northeastern 
portion of Gloucester. Its proximity to the city of Philadel- 
phia and the large and growing city of Camden, where some 
of the largest ship-building plants of this country are lo- 
cating, makes it, naturally, a desirable location for market 
gardening and truck farming. 

As though foreseeing both the large consuming population 
and the crops suited to their needs that would later be needed, 
ftnd that could be better grown nearby and marketed in a 
much freslier and better condition for tliat reason, nature 
placed a soil of sandy texture along tlic Delaware river border 
of this entire county, so that the market gardener and trucker 
finds a soil adapted to the production of early and quick- 
growing crops ready at hand. 

The southeastern part of this county, also, has a soil suit- 
able for such crops, and tlio quantities of produce carted to 
the markets named by llie farmers" teams is very great. 
Wagons are constructed especially for this purpose, and over 
the fine stone roads that traverse the county loads arc carried 
four and five times as weighty as was possible to do under 
former conditions. This possibility is a great annual saving 
in cost of cartage, fewer men and teams being required. 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOlv. 53- 

In the vicinity of Haddonfield the soil is well adapted for 
the grains and grasses, and dairying is followed extensively 
with other branches. Some fine herds of the best dairy breeds 
are located in this vicinity. With such markets at the very door 
of the farmer, he need not fear of having a) quick and steady 
demand for his products, if he grows a first-class article. 
Tliis should be the aim of every man who engages in any 
branch of the varied business of agriculture. 

CAPE MAY COUNTY. 

This county is the most southern limit of the State. It 
derives its name from Cornelius Jacobesen Mey, who, in 1621, 
explored the coast and gave this cape his own name. It was 
organized a county by proprietary law in 1692, and by act of 
1710 its bounds were definitely fixed. 

The soil is mostly sand and sandy loam, and, where the latter 
is found, agriculture has, during recent years, made com- 
mendable advancement. Grain crops are not grown exten- 
sively, but forage crops, as crimson clover, cow peas and the 
millets, do well, and are gro^\^l for dairy and soiling purposes. 
Much of the soil is well adapted to market gardening crops, 
and, with nearby markets and good transportation facilities 
to those of Philadelphia and other cities, this county, with its 
cheap lands, presents an inviting field for new settlers. 

The conditions of the Jewish colony, located in this county, 
are set forth in anotlier article, to which the reader is referred. 

Cape May City has long been known as one of the oldest 
and most popular summer resorts in the United States. Situ- 
ated upon the peninsula and almost surrounded by water 
gives it superior advantages for ocean view, delightful sea 
breezes and bathing. 

Along the coast are numerous towns, all populated largely 
by visitors from the cities, who enjoy the summer sports of 
bathing, boating and fishing, the facilities for which are un- 
surpassed. 



54 XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 



CUMBERLAXD COUXTY. 

This county formed a part of Salem until 1747, and was 
named in honor of the Duke of Cumberland. It is situated 
in the central-southern part of the State. It was settled in 
the early history of the State, about 1732, several families 
locating at Deerficld, and, in 1737, a Presbyterian church was 
erected. In 1775 a company of soldiers was formed at Bridge- 
ton, marched north and joined the army of General Schuyler, 
■ of Revolutionary fame. 

The surface of the county is comparatively level; soil of 
alluvial formation, generally sandy loam, with some clay. 
Along the Delaware bay is a large tract of marshy land, the 
northeastern part being covered with pine and small oak. 

Agriculture has, from the first settlement of the county, 
been one of the leading occupations. The farmers are pro- 
gressive, ready to change from the old methods, if better and 
more successful are assured. 

The cereals, as corn, wheat and oats, grow well o»n tlie 
heavier soils, and. on the light sand, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, 
early peas and otlu^r vegetables are grown extensively. Sev- 
eral canning establisbments have been operated for some 
years, alfording a reliable and profitable market for tomato- 
growers. 

The production of small fruits ami berries of diJl'erent 
kinds is increasing. Here the delieious strawberry attains 
]K'rfection; thousands of crates are often sent daily to various 
markets, and, from the large centers, distributed to the 
smaller towns in this and other States. The raspberry and 
blackberry are cultivated extensively. Huckleberries grow 
wild and without any effort on the part of the landowner, 
except gathering and marketing. Grapes abound, and many 
acres, formerly uncultivated, arc now producing grapes and 
wine abundantly. "Watermelons and cantaloupes are market 
crops in some parts of the county. Dairying is extensively 
jiracticed, milk that is not consumed in the county being 
shipped to Philadelphia and the coast resorts. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 55 

Bridgeton, Millville and Vineland are large, thriving towns. 
Some of the leading glass works in the country are located at 
these points, which, with other manufactories in the county, 
employ large numl3ers of men and women, who consume much 
that is o'rown in the surrounding district. 



GENERAL HISTOKICAL SKETCH OF BEEGEX, PASSAIC AXD 
HUDSON COUNTIES.* 

The territory comprising old Bergen and Passaic counties 
has been variously marked by its lines of civil division. Its 
eastern border, along the Hudson, constituted the first organ- 
ized municipality in East Jersey, having been incorporated 
as the to-wTi of Bergen in 1658. In 1664 the townsliip of 
Bergen, comprising the present county of Hudson, east of 
the Ilackensack river, was added to it. 

In 1682 the county of Bergen was erected, and included the 
territory east of the Hackensack from the Kill von Kull to 
the State line. In 1710 the county of Bergen was enlarged, 
and from that time till 1837, when Passaic county was set 
off, it included the latter, with the exception of the small 
part southward of the Passaic (taken from Essex), and the 
count}' of Hudson, which was set off and erected into a sepa- 
rate county in 18-40. 

During the two hundred years and upwards which preceded 
the last division of Bergen, while her ancient domain was yet 
intact, many of her most important historical events occurred. 
^Vhile we do not underrate the marvelous progress of the last 
half century, which has literally transformed the face of the 
whole country in a great variety of respects, yet in history 
that which is most ancient is most interesting. We cease to 
•wonder at the marvels of modern phenomena because of their 
very abundance and familiarity, but the "forgotten lore of by- 
gone ages" excites in the mind of the student an ever-new 
and fresh delight. 

*In part from Clayton & Nelson's History of Bergen and Passaic Counties, 1882. 



56 XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

Bergen, in her old undivided status, passed through the 
phases of colonization and civil rule under the Dutch of Xew 
Xetherland, with which her beginning as a settlement was 
practically contemporaneous; through the transition to an 
English colon}'^ and the government of the Proprietors of 
East Jersey; through the exciting scenes of the early Indian 
wars, the period of colonial authority under the kings of Eng- 
land, and the stirring events of the struggle for independence. 
She passed through the formative period of the State and the 
Nation, the subsequent war with Great Britain, and held her 
territory undivided for a quarter of a century after those 
great events had occurred. 

That portion now included in Hudson county was, in many 
respects, the theatre of the most important events, so far as 
the people of Bergen were concerned. It was the earliest 
settled and the nearest the center of the most important opera- 
tions of early as well as of modern times. 

This section, in its commercial and manufacturing im- 
portance, is second to no other district of equal extent in the 
State. Every year adds to it greater population, greater com- 
mercial value, and increased facilities for connecting the 
vastly-accumulating business of the great West with Xew 
York City, and the great warehouses for western-bound goods 
arriving from Europe on the Xew Jersey side of the Hudson 
must, more and more, be located here. 

BERGEN" COUNTY. 

This county was erected in 1682, and comprised parts of 
Passaic and Hudson. On the west, mountainous, and on the 
east, along the Hudson river, tlie world-famed Palisades. 
This county is dotted over with towns, some of which are 
adjacent to and overlooking this beautiful river. Located near 
Xew York, tliousands having occupation in that great city 
have their homes here. 

Tlic soil in the valleys is very productive, in a high state of 
cultivation, and a line of market gardening is followed, the 



XEW JEESEY IFAND-BOOK. 57 

products therefrom finding a good market at paying prices 
without cost of shipment. 

In the northern sections of the county there is much land 
well adapted for all the early vegetables, small and large 
fruits and similar crops, which could be utilized in this way 
at a much larger profit than is obtained from the rotation 
crops, such as are produced in the West at much less expense 
than is possible here. 

This is an inviting location to such as are inclined to truck 
farming. 

Milk-production is receiving more attention than formerly. 
Improved conditions, better cows, more attention to sanitary 
condition of stables and intelligent feeding make it a profit- 
able business, where, as here, it is delivered to cttstomers by 
the producer. 

The good railroad facilities to all parts of the county, the 
Palisades along the eastern border and the Ramapo moun- 
tains in the northern section make it an ideal location for the 
home of either farmer, artisan or the retired millionaire. 

TASSAIC COrXTY. 

This county was formed from the northern part of Essex 
and western part of Bergen counties in 1837. The surface is 
generally hilly, with Ijroad, fertih' valleys, except the extreme 
southeast, where it is level. 

It is well-watered by the Passaic, Eamapo and other rivers, 
which not only fertilize the valleys, but are of the utmost 
value for water-supply and drainage to the numerous cities 
along their course. 

In the northern part large deposits of valuable iron ore are 
found and extensively used in the numerous forges of that 
region. It derives its chief imJ)ortance from its extensive man- 
ufactories located at Patcrson, Passaic and other places. These 
are extensive and require a local population that must be fed. 
Tillers of the soil, even more than they now do, should take 
advantage of this need and supply it with fresh products of 

E 



NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 



the farm, market garden, dairy and poultry yard^ and not 
make it necessary for them to draw npon remote producers for 
these necessities as they are sent to the New York market. 
If the branches of agriculture practiced in this county are 
■chosen with reference to the market demands, and first-class 
products grown, no better situation for enterjDrising farmers 
need be sought. 

Dairying is a growing industry in the numerous valleys, 
which afford abundant pasturage of excellent quality, and 
the demand for good milk increases with tli€ population. 
I'ruits of all standard varieties are grown abundantly, with a 
•quality unsurpassed. Market gardening is profitably engaged 
in: the deep soil in the valleys being well adapted for this 
purpose. 

Numerous lakes, fed by mountain springs ; the varied 
scenery, from hilltop or mountain summit; the beautiful 
valleys, under varied cultivation, make it an ideal summer 
location for the care-worn city man, thousands of whom are 
now availing themselves of its enjoyments. 

HUDSON COUNTY. 

This county was formed from the southern part of Bergen 
•county in 1840, and is the smallest county in the State, con- 
taining only about seventy-five square miles. While small 
in area, it is second in wealth. In 1900 the valuation was 
$169,127,800, a gain over the preceding year of $7,133,500, 
which is a greater increase than any county in the State. 
Situated directly opposite America's great commercial city 
and possessing almost equal water facilities for the largest 
•ocean steamers, many of the trans-Atlantic and other lines 
«ail from Jersey City and Hoboken, where better communica- 
tion is made with the Great Trunk Line railroads. 

Here the Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Ohio, New Jersey 
Central, Lehigh Yulloy. Lackawanna and Erie systems have 
their terminals. ;ind llic larger part of the export and im])ort 
<-omni('rci;il li-nlTic of the T'nitcd S(;ilos passes ihrougb Hud- 




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20 feet wide. Telford, lo inches. Macadam, S inches. 



NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 59 

son's gateway to points of distribution throughout the country 
and the world. 

This is also the second county in population. Thousands 
who are employed in the metropolis have homes in its various 
towns, which are easily reached by steam or trolley roads. 

Owing to the limited amount of land unoccupied by build- 
ings, general lines of agriculture are not followed ; but, where 
vacant lands are found, these are tilled by the market gar- 
dener, who often produces several crops from the same ground 
in a single season. The greenhouse industry is also extensive, 
a large amount of capital being invested and the most modern 
systems are used. The location being at a market where there 
is always a demand, insures paying, and, at times, fabulous, 
prices for crops produced. For these reasons Hudson county 
affords special advantages to horticulturists engaged in this 
particular work. 

ESSEX COUNTY. 

This county was formed in 1675, and was originally larger 
in area. It is now the most populous and wealthy county in 
the State. Like other counties near the city of New York, it 
is covered with cities and towns. Newark, the largest city in 
the State, is noted for its manufacturing industries. 

The northern part of the county is hilly, almost moun- 
tainous, yet these are covered with beautiful towns contain- 
ing handsome residences of wealthy people, who prefer this 
charming section to city homes. In 1900 the taxable value 
of Essex county real estate was $174,505,800, with a total 
valuation of property taxed $210,806,300. Owing to the high 
value of land, general farming is practiced but little. 

Dairying, however, is a leading feature in the western part 
of the county, and there are but few, if any, sections in the 
State where more cows are kept on a limited acreage than 
here. A demand for pure, good milk from healthy cows and 
cleanly surroundings has led many to improve their methods 
and stables, to the advantage of producer and consumer. The 
Fairfield Dairy, near Caldwell, with others in the"" countv, are 



60 SEW JEKSEY HAND-BOOK. 

worthy of inspection by all students of the dairy business. 
Fifty men, five hundred cows and six hundred acres of land, 
with the necessary teams and dairy appliances, constitute 
the working force of the former. It is, in all of its appoint- 
ments, one of the leading dairies in the United States. 

Market gardening is carried on to the highest perfection, 
producing, in some instances, three or more crops a year. 
The convenience of excellent home markets that consume all 
perishable products are advantages possessed by those only 
who are located near them. Fruits, both standard and the 
smaller kinds, grow well. Strawberries are grown in the 
vicinity of Xewark to a high state of perfection, and bring the 
highest price in the Newark and New York markets, while 
vegetables, under the high cultivation given, produce enor- 
mously. If one desires to live in close touch tvith metropoli- 
tan advantages, while, at same time, enjoying the pleasures 
of a rural home, Essex county can furnish many desirable 
locations. 

GLOUCESTER COUNTY. 

This county was laid out in 1694, and the boundaries defi- 
nitely fixed in 1710. It is of alluvial formation, and, in 
different parts, vegetable deposits and sea-shells have been 
found many feet below the surface, which is slightly undulat- 
ing. The soil is generally an admixture of clay and sand, 
very fertile, producing grain, grass, fruit and vegetables in 
abundance. 

Dairying has received more attention during the last few 
years than formerly, but is not a leading industry. Its prox- 
imity to the large cities of Camden and Pliiladelphia, with 
the adaptability of the soil for trucking and market garden- 
ing purposes, has made tliis line of agriculture mooe profit- 
able than any other. 

Here the sweet potato is grown to perfection, both in quan- 
tity and quality, and is a staple crop, this county producing 
about half the total yield of the State. Formerly stable 
manure, in large quantities, was used for growing this crop, 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 61 



but, ill recent years, humus is obtained by green manuring 
and using commercial fertilizers prepared especially for it. 
During the harvesting season as many as eighteen carloads 
in a single day are frequently sent from Swedesboro station, 
besides large quantities from other points, which are shipped 
to the northern and western States. 

White potatoes of early varieties are also extensively grown ; 
the warm, sandy soil permits early planting and hastens 
maturity. The same conditions also favor tomato-growing; 
the plants being started in hot-beds, are ready for transplant- 
ing early in the season, and, under high cultivation, begin 
bearing before the general markets are overstocked. A dif- 
ference of one week in time of ripening will often materially 
affect the money returns to the grower. 

Melons are also largely grown, and the crop is increasing in 
favor. Vegetables of all the standard kinds and small fruits 
are extensively grown for the nearby markets, most of which 
is liauled in wagons to Camden and Philadelphia. To those 
who prefer this line of farming, with the superior advantages 
afforded, this county offers special inducements. 

IIUNTERDOy COUNTY. 

Hunterdon, named after Governor Hunter, was set off from 
Burlington in 1713. Originally it comprised portions of what 
are now the counties of Warren, Sussex, Morris and fiercer. 
It is somewhat diversified with hills, table-lands and broad 
valleys. The ]\rusconetcong mountains extend nearly across 
the northern part, and. with several distinct spurs, are sources 
of many never-failing streams that furnish abundant water- 
power. 

There is a great variety of soil; the southern part, along 
Sourland mountain, is cold, clayey and rocky ; north of this 
narrow strip is a beautiful, highly cultivated, rolling country, 
principally red shale from one to six feet below the surface, 
while in the more northern is the well-known limestone 
section. 



62 XEW JEESEY HAXD-BOOK. 

This, like other counties in the center of the State, is largely 
interested in milk-production. The railroads in the northern 
and eastern sections carry large quantities daily to New 
York, Several creameries are located in its bounds, making 
large amounts of butter, and, being of superior quality, finds 
a ready market at good prices. 

Much attention has been given, in former years, to raising 
horses. Types were selected by breeders that suited the 
market for size, style and speed. Perhaps no county has pro- 
duced more or finer specimens of this noble animal than 
Hunterdon. 

Sheep-raising has also been prominent, particularly raising 
early lambs for market. Many of these go to the shambles 
in February and fancy prices are realized. 

For many years this has been the banner county for peach- 
production. So extensive has this branch become that two 
exchanges were formed, one at Flemington and the other at 
Pittstown. Through these agencies the bulk of the crop has 
been sold, and more satisfactory returns obtained than when 
forwarded to commission houses in the cities. Apples, pears 
and all standard fruits abound, and, frequently, where the 
land is too rough for cultivation, the hardier fruits grow 
luxuriantly. 

The people are intelligent, industrious and progressive. 
Many of the farmers have, for years, been interested in the 
agricultural organization?, from which they have derived 
great advantages, both intellectually and financially. The 
hills, covered with fruit-laden orchards, and the valleys with 
flocks and herds, dotted here and there with attractive farm 
homes, present an inviting appearance to the home-seeker who 

has an eye both to profit and beautiful scenery. 

« 

MERCER COUNTY. 

Mercer county was formed from the counties of Hunterdon, 
Burlington and Middlesex in 1838, and is about twenty miles 
long, witli an average width of twelve miles. Within its 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 63 

bounds were fought two important battles of the Revolution, 
viz., Trenton and Princeton. It takes its name from General 
Mercer, who was killed at the latter. Hopewell was the head- 
quarters of General Washington before the battle of Mon- 
mouth. 

This county has, perhaps, better educational facilities than 
any in the State : Princeton University, located at Princeton ; 
the State Normal and Model Schools, at Trenton; the John 
C. Green Foundation, at Lawrenceville ; Pennington Semi- 
nary, at Pennington, and Peddie Institute, at Hightstown,. 
all of which are liberally patronized, not only from New- 
Jersey and other States, but also from foreign lands. 

The State capitol is located at Trenton, as is also the 
county seat. This is a large manufacturing city, and, with the 
towns above mentioned, consumes a large part of the agricul- 
tural and horticultural products, thus a good home market is- 
afforded and transportation expenses to other places avoided. 

This county is well-watered, Stony brook and Assanpink 
creek, with their numerous branches, running through it and 
emptying into the Delaware river at Trenton. The country 
south of Princeton and Trenton is level, of an alluvial forma- 
tion, soil light, but productive and well adapted to market 
gardening and fruits. 

North, the surface is more undulating, with a variety of soil 
well adapted to the growing of summer and winter grain. 
Dairying is now extensively followed, and, owing to con- 
venient home markets, many retail the product, obtaining the 
highest price, thus receiving the entire profit. Others more 
distant have excellent shipping facilities and large quantities- 
are sent daily, to Philadelphia. 

Three creameries are located within its bounds, which nlso 
afford additional market facilities. 

There arc three canning factories; these are built on the 
co-operative plan. Tomatoes are the chief product, and, 
being grown on the loamy soils, secure solidity and flavor, 
which gives them a reputation commanding the highest mar- 
ket price. While our entire State has special geographical 
advantages, being located between the large populous cities. 



64 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

this county, with its adaptation for the various branches of 
agricultural and horticultural work, offers superior advan- 
tages for profit and edueational facilities. 

MIDDLESEX COUXTY. 

This county was first formed in 1682, since which its 
boundaries have undergone considerable alteration. It is 
well-watered by the Earitan river and other streams. The 
surface is level or undulating; soil varies from light sand to 
heavy clay in the northern and eastern part ; the southern, em- 
bracing Cranbury and Monroe townships especially, is a 
gi'avel loam of excellent combination for grain, grass, pota- 
toes and fruits of all kinds. 

The entire county is in close touch with excellent markets 
by means of numerous railroads and stone roads. Both the 
New York and the Camden and Amboy Divisions of the 
Pennsylvania Eailroad system traverse the county its entire 
length. The State Agricultural College and the College 
Experiment Farm are in this county, located at New Bruns- 
wick, in connection with Eutgers College. 

Dr. Edward B. Voorhees, the Director of the State and 
College Experiment Station and Professor of Agriculture in 
Eutgers College, resides on the College Farm. This farm 
is imder his immediate supervision. Its model dairy, its 
succession of forage crops, its several farm crops, with the 
experimental plots of the State Entomologist, Dr. John B. 
Smitli, and of the Professor of Botany and Horticulture, Dr. 
Byron D. Ilalsted, afford standing object-lessons for the 
farmers of the State and arc very valuable to them. 

"^Po those wlio desire to engage in the jn-oduction of the 
staple cro])s — corn, wheat, rye, oats, grass for hay, potatoes 
and fruit, this county can furnish the very best land for such 
crops. 

Dairying is also assuming a place as a leading industry 
Farmers are realizing that it is often more profitable to nianu- 
facture their grain and Iniv into milk and butter for a market 



i 




Cranbury Station Road, Middlesex County, (liefore Improvement.) 




Cranbury, Station Road, Middlesex County. (After Improvement.) 



NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 65 



crop, tlms retaining- the fertility value of their farm crops at 

home, instead of allowing this to go off the farm and be 

replaced by commercial fertilizers. 

Historically, the county is interesting. It, with some of its 

neiohboring counties, was the theatre of the contending forces 
duSno- the protracted struggle of the war of the Aniencan 
Revolution. Xew Brunswick, the capital of the county, was 
occupied alternately by these forces as the one or the other 
succeeded in gaining possession. 

The present Secretary of the New Jersey State Board of 
\o-nculture is a native of this county, as were his parents 
and grandparents. 

MONMOUTH COUNTY. 

This countv was first established in 1675, but its bound- 
aries were noi definitely fixed until KU. It was originally 
settled, about 1664, by the Dutch, Scotch and some ]Sew 
Englanders. During the Eevolutionary war it suffered se- 
verely • its easv access from New York made it a favorite 
resort of the Eoyalists for forage and plunder. Withm its 
bound, was fought one of the most important battles of the 
Eevolution, near Freehold, June 28th, 1778. This ground, 
so .dear to all American citizens, is now owned by Hon. D. D. 
Denise, who for many years was President of the New Jersey 
State Board of Agriculture, and to whom it owes much for its 

present success. 

Near the battle-field stands the old Tennent Church, still 
preserved as it was more than a hundred years ago, and noted 
for its history in connection with Eeverends William and Cxil- 
bert Tennent and the strife for independence of that critical 

^"^Thei-e are several important towns and cities in this county, 
and like other counties bordering on the seacoast, is thickly 
settled along the ocean front. Long Branch, one of the first 
popular seaside resorts, with Elberon, Ocean Grove and As- 
bury Park, have a wide reputation, and numerous others are 
coming into prominence year by year. 



eG NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

The surface of this county is level or slightly undulating. 
The soil, in a high state of cultivation, produces equal with 
the best counties in the State. Marl, a mineral fertilizer, 
abounds, and was extensively used years ago and advanced 
the agricultural productions to a high standard, which has 
not been lowered. Grain, grass, fruits and vegetables grow 
luxuriantly. The nature of the soil is especially adapted to 
growing potatoes, and thousands of barrels are shipped an- 
nually to New York and other markets. 

The canning business is carried on quite extensively; at 
Freehold one firm uses the product of 1,400 acres, chiefly peas 
and Lima beans. 

This county also leads in the growing of the Keiffer and 
other varieties of pears, yielding bountiful returns when in- 
telligently handled. Dairying is increasing, the summer 
resorts consuming large quantities of milk. 

Among the vegetables asparagus is an important crop — 
near the northern coast large areas are planted and the re- 
turns range from $200 to $500 per acre in favorable seasons. 
Tomatoes arc largely grown, both for shipping and canning. 
The nature of the soil produces a superior quality, which 
commands the highest price. 

The possibilities of this and other counties cannot be deter- 
mined. With a class of intelligent, progressive farmers, ready 
for advancement along new lines that promise well, Mon- 
mouth will continue to be one of the prominent agricultural 
counties of the Stat6. 

MORRIS COUNTY. 

This county was set off from Hunterdon in the year 1739. 
It originally included Sussex and Warren. It was named after 
Lewis ]\rorris, Governor of the Province at that time. The 
northei'ii and wcstci-ii ])ortion is mountainous, the remaining 
generally level or undulating. 

It is well-watered by the Passaic river, with its tributaries, 
and tlu' nortli braiicli of tlic Karitau. Witliin its bouiuls are 
several large and thriving towiis, also liandsome suburban 




KEIFFER PEAR ORCHARD, D. D. Denise, Monmouth County. 
496 bushels to the acre. 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. (i7 

places, where many of large wealth have settled, especially 
along the high ridges, where land that, half a century ago, 
was almost worthless, is now, for this reason, most valuable. 
It also has large iron manufactories, the abundance and 
quality of the ore and its accessibility to markets have in- 
duced many interested in metal industries to locate here. 

At Morristown, the county scat, the American army, under 
General Washington, had its winter headquarters, and, in 
recent years, an association has been formed which purchased 
the house and land adjoining that it may be preserved for its 
historic interest. Many interesting relics of colonial days 
and revolutionary times are here preserved. 

This county, like others located at convenient distance from 
city markets and also having a large suburban population, is 
largely engaged in dairying, which is on the increase. Cereal 
crops are grown to some extent, especially those that can be 
used as dairy foods. 

Fruits of standard varieties have for many years been 
grown and attained a high state of perfection. The peach 
finds here a soil adapted to its wants. 

The growing of plants and flowers is carried on extensively. 
Thousands of dollars are invested in greenhouses, and some of 
the largest and most modern buildings in the State, for com- 
mercial purposes, are within its bounds. 

To those who desire a home near the metropolis and who 
enjoy natural scenery found only among the hills, superior 
advantages are here afforded. 

OCEAN COUNTY. 

This county was formed from the southern part of Mon- 
mouth in 1850; located along the Atlantic coast, upon whicli 
it has a frontage of thirty-six miles, with a long, narrow 
beach, separated from the mainland by Barnegat bay, which 
has made it a desirable location for summer residents. 

Numerous towns and popular resorts are scattered along 
the entire front, and, for those who desire the enjoyment of 



68 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

refreshing sea breezes, ocean-bathing or the sport of gunning 
and fishing, with freedom from the conventionalties of the 
fashionable watering-phices, these afford an ideal location. 

The surface is level, soil mostly light and sandy. Within 
the past two decades more interest has been taken in agri- 
cultural pursuits than formerly. Corn is the leading cereal 
crop, being used for feeding the domestic animals and poultry, 
the latter being a prominent industry and profitable for flesh 
and egg-production. In the vicinity of Toms river and Island 
Heights, Manahawkin and New Egypt are excellent farming 
lands, and dairying, as well as general farming, is followed. 

Small fruits and berries, with the usual field and garden 
vegetables, are extensively grown. Clearings in the natural 
pine forest, which afford protection, and a warm, dry soil give 
special advantages for growing early crops. Cranberries are 
produced to some extent, and huckleberries grow in profusion 
and are a market crop of much value. The fish and oyster 
industries afford profitable employment to a large number. 

To those desirous of engaging in light agricultural or horti- 
cultural pursuits and of securing tlic advantages of cheap 
land, a soft, piney air and the usual seacoast sports. Ocean, 
like other seacoast localities, offers many attractions. 

SALEM COUXTY. 

This is the southwestern county of the State; its boundaries 
were fixed in 1710, nnd included Ciimberliind. which was 
taken from it in 174S. 

It is well-watered l)y the Salem river and numerous creeks, 
the former being navigable for steamboats as far as Salem. 

Tlie county is of alluvial formation and gonorally level. 
The soil, mostly sand or gravel, is frequently mixed with 
clay or loam. 

Agriculture is the leading occupation, and tlie farmers are 
among the most ]irogressive to be found in the State. This 
is largely owing to ihe agi'ieultural organizations, where 



.NEW JERSEY liA^^U-BOOK. GD 

information is gained and a lioaltliy emulation to intensive 
farming encouraged. 

Dairying is the leading feature, and some of the best and 
most profitable dairies in the State are to be found here. 
Feeding balanced rations has increased the How of milk and 
at less cost than by the old methods. ]\Iost of this product is 
shipped to Philadelphia, Camden and Atlantic City, while 
several local creameries are located at convenient jjoints. 
This county is famous as one of the pioneer localities in the 
manufacture of ice cream for the Philadelphia market. There 
are now forty silos and the number is increasing every year. 

The cereal crops — wheat, corn, tomatoes and potatoes — 
grow luxuriantly. Grass, both natural meadow and culti- 
vated, yields abundantly. Sweet potatoes are raised exten- 
sivel}', and, where the lighter soils prevail, are one of the 
leading crops. Other vegetables and fruits, small and stand- 
ard, do well. 

Tomatoes are a field crop; the plants, grown in hot-beds, 
are set early, and, being well fertilized, mature their crop 
early; the first pickings arc often forwarded to city markets, 
while the bulk of the yield is used by the numerous canning 
factories located in the county. To those who desire a diversi- 
fied line of agriculture and good social advantages, this por- 
tion of the State possesses superior attractions. 

SOMERSET COUNTY. 

This is the most central county in the State, and was settled 
early by the Dutch and set off from Middlesex in 1688. The 
preamble to the act is both unique and interesting, to Avit: 

"Forasmuch as the uppermost part of the Earitan river is 
settled by persons whom, in their husbandry and manuring 
their land, forced upon quite different ways and methods 
from other farmers and inhabitants of ]\[iddlesex, because of 
the frequent floods that carry away the fences on the meadows ; 
the only arable land they have, and so by consequence of their 



70 XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

interest is divided from the other inhabitants of said county : 
Be it therefore enacted," &c. 

Its bounds have been altered at different times, and the 
present area is about twenty-five miles long, with an average 
width of fifteen miles. The surface is diversified — the central 
and southeastern portion fairly level, the southern and south- 
western hilly and the northeastern quite mountainous. The 
soil of the hills is mostly clay loam, the plains sandy loam and 
the mountain valleys limestone. 

It is also well-watered by the Raritan river and its tribu- 
taries, affording excellent water-power for milling and manu- 
facturing purposes, also natural drainage, and the bottom or 
meadow lands are among the most productive for hay and 
pasturage in the State. 

From the above-quoted preamble it will be seen that the 
•early settlers followed the pursuit of agriculture, and some of 
its citizens to-day are among the leading farmers in the State. 
The cereal crops of summer and winter grain grow well, and 
parts of tlie county that a few years ago were considered 
almost worthless have, under judicious and intelligent man- 
agement, become highly productive. 

Dairying is followed to a considerable extent, some of the 
product being shipped to adjacent cities, but 'the larger part is 
sold to the creameries, of which there are several — the price 
paid being based on the quantity of butter fat in the milk. 

The raising of horses has been followed for many years, 
and proved a paying business for those who gave special at- 
tention to growing a class of animals adapted for city cus- 
tomers. Much of the land is well adapted to growing staple 
fruits. The steep hillsides have produced, under proper care, 
some of the finest peach orchards in New Jersey. Small 
fruits, of varieties adapted, do well, and so the different lines 
of husbandry can bo successfully pursued. 

Somorville, the county seat, is a growing, po])iilar iown, 
having communication with New York City, Elizabeth, Plain- 
fiolf! and otiior citios and towns east and wo.'^t bv Itotli railroad 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 71 

and trolle}'. Washington's headquarters at Rocky Hill — the 
Berrien Plouse — where the "Farewell Address to the Armies 
of the United States" was written, in 1783, and at Somer- 
ville the Wallace House, where the Indian campaign of 1778 
was planned, are hoth within the limits of Somerset county. 

SUSSEX COUNTY. 

This is the northern county of the State, formed from 
Morris county in 1753. In 1824 its limits were reduced by 
the formation of Warren county from its southern portion. 
It is twenty-seven niiles long and twenty-one broad. The 
central portion is undulating. The Blue mountains run 
through the western part and the Hamburg mountains are in 
the northeastern part of the county. 

It is well-watered by numerous streams, which, having their 
source from the mountain springs, make them of a lasting 
nature. There are also many small ponds or lakes, some being 
on the summit of the mountains. Along their shores delight- 
ful summer resorts are located, and they are liberally patron- 
ized. Iron ore and zinc are found in the mountains of the 
east, slate of superior quality is quarried and a large amount 
of capital is invested in these industries. 

It is^also one of the best agricultural districts in the State — 
corn, wheat, oats and grass grow to perfection. Dairying is 
a leading feature. The broad and fertile valleys between the 
mountain ranges, with never-failing streams of water run- 
ning through almost every farm, luxuriant grass, natural 
and cultivated, make it an ideal location for this business. 

There are fourteen creameries located at convenient points 
within its bounds. When there is demand, at paying prices, 
much of the product they receive is sent to New York, and, at 
other times, is made into butter. 

Sussex has, for many 5^ears, been noted for the raising of 
horses, and some of the finest horse farms in the State are to 
be found here. Sheep-raising, once extensively ]uirsued. l)otli 



72 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



for wool and mutton, is receiving increasing attention, especi- 
ally upon farms where cultivation is difticult. 

All standard fruits are grown with success. Apples, 
peaches and pears grow to perfection, hoth soil and climate 
being congenial. Many hillsides are now covered with pro- 
ductive peach orchards, and the outlook is so l)right that thou- 
sands of young trees are being set annually. A drive through 
this beautiful country, with its charming view of hill and dale, 
the well-improved farms, with attractive buildings thereon, is 
convincing that the inhal)itants arc tlirifly and comfortable 

UNION COUNTY. 

This county was set off from the southern part of Essex in 
1858. It has geographical advantages over many parts of the 
State. Convenient to New York, thousands find here a quiet, 
restful location for homes, with freedom from bustle and 
confusion in the large cities. 

Several large and important towns are within its bounds. 
Elizabeth, formerly called Elizabethtown, was the third set- 
tlement made in the State, and the first by the English. It 
was incorporated "Borough of Elizabeth" February 8th, 1739. 
Near Elizabeth stands "Liberty Hall," the residence of Wil- 
liam Livingston, the Eevolutionary War Governor of New 
Jersey. 

Phillip Carteret, the first Governor of New Jersey, came to 
this town in 1665, made it the capital of the Province, and 
named it in honor of Lady Elizabeth, the wife of his brother, 
one of the proprietors of East Jersey. The first General 
Assembly of the State met here in 1668, and continued, with 
few exceptions, up to 1682. 

The College of New Jersey, now rrineeton University, was 
started in this town, under the direction of Jonaflian Dickin- 
son, its first President. 

Plainliold, a beauiiful and lliriving city, with the city of 
l?ahway and inany other rapidly-growing towns in otlier parts 
of the county, give evidence of its ]in]inlnrity as a place to live. 



XEW JEIJSEY HAXD-BOOK. 73 

The surface is level in the southern half, but in the northern 
it is hilly. The soil varies in composition, some, sand and 
clay mixed with loam, and other, red shale. 

Agriculture is followed on such general lines as in other 
adjoining counties. The convenience to markets, where milk 
can be delivered to the consumer by the producer, has led one- 
half or more of the farmers to engage in milk-production. 
A number of fine herds of choice-bred cattle, Avith improved 
stables and dairy barns, give evidence of progress and profit 
in dair}' husbandry. 

Cereals are not largely grown, corn being the leading grain 
crop, as both grain and fodder are utilized for dairy purposes. 
Ha}^, potatoes and tomatoes are leading products for the 
nearby markets. 

Standard fruits, as apples, peaches and pears, thrive well; 
market gardening and truck farming also occupy a large acre- 
age — a small plot of ground, carefully tilled, often yielding- 
larger returns than the ordinary-sized farm devoted to the old 
standard crops. 

The advantages possessed by the farmers of this county ar-e 
good markets near at hand, a net-work of steam and trolley 
lines, excellent educational facilities and good roads, for 
either hauling produce or pleasure driving. Union coitnty 
was a pioneer in the good roads movement. The ''Union 
County law," which provided for constructing roads under a 
county system, using crushed stone for the surface of the road, 
was enacted prior to the law allowing State aid in road- 
building. 

WARIIEX COUNTY. 

This county, originally the southern part of Sussex, was 
formed into a distinct county in 1824. It is well- watered by 
many streams, which empty into the Delaware. 

The surface is generally mountainous or hilly, with fertile 
valleys intervening. The most prominent ranges are the Blue 
mountains on the northwest and the ]\rusconetcon£: on tlie 



74: XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

southwest boundary. Lime is a1)undaiit, and its use of great 
value, when properly applied. 

Within the bounds of this county are several important 
towns, beautiful for location, and excellent taste is displayed 
by the owners in the matter of general appearance and preser- 
vation. 

Belvidere, the county seat, is located on the banks of the 
Delaware and both sides of the Pequest (the latter stream 
emptying into the former at this point), and has, from its 
settlement, been noted for the intelligence and thrift of its 
inhabitants. 

Washington, located in the beautifiil valley bearing its 
name, has for many years been noted for the large organ 
manufactories and the number and quality of the instruments 
made. 

Hackettstown, near the southern border, is in close connec- 
tion with the prominent resort of Schooleys mountain, and is 
the seat of Hackettstown Seminary. 

Blairstown is located in tlie northern part, and is the liome 
of the late John I. Blair, whose large-hearted beneficence not 
only founded but liberally endowed the Blairstown Academy, 
a school for Ijoth sexes. ^ 

Warren county has also become noted for the excellent 
<"juality of cement rock, found in great abundance, and sev- 
eral large establislimciits arc now sending quantities of it 
throughout the country. 

In agriculture Warren stands among the first. Tlic nu- 
merous valleys contain some of the best and most productive 
land in the State. Tlie drained Pequest valley, known as 
the rjrcat ^Meadows, produces enormous crops of onions, celery 
and otlicr market-garden crops. Washington valley is a rich 
agricultural section, and, in the growing season, with undu- 
lating valleys and hills, presents a view, in many respects, 
unexcelled elsewhere. The hillsides, also, are almost equally 
fertile. 

Dairying has increased during the last decade. Several 
creameries at convenient points consume a large part of the 
m\]]\ produced. Kaising of horses has loner been a favorite 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 75 

business, and the excellent types of this noble animal here 
developed show years of study and close attention to this 
particular industry. 

Sheep, for many years, have been among the favorite farm 
animals. The hilltops, where too stony for cultivation, are 
well adapted for the production of lambs, wool and mutton. 
Grass and all cereal crops grow to perfection when properly 
cared for. 

In fruits, apples and peaches lead. The natural adapta- 
bility of the soil and climate are such that, where proper care 
is given by the orchardist, these produce abundantly and of 
the finest quality. Other fuits, berries and vegetables, while 
not extensively grown for market crops, yield well and amply 
repay the intelligent gardener. 

This county, like others in the northern section, has special 
attractions for those who delight in a diversified landscape, 
dry atmosphere, productive lands and the society of pro'press- 
ive, intellio-ent citizens. 



76 XEW JEESEY HAXD-BOOK. 



UNOCCUPIED LANDS IN NEW 
JERSEY. 



BY J. c. s:mock. 



There are in the southern part of the State large tracts of 
land which are still uncleared, or covered with brushwood, 
and which are adapted to tillage and capable of producing 
large crops of small fruits and market-garden vegetables. 
The Avood on them is mainly oak, with some pitch pine and 
yellow pine, and hence they are called oak lands to distinguish 
them from the more sandy lands and tracts on which the 
pitch pine grows almost exclusively. The latter are known as 
pine lands. The total area of cleared (farm) lands in the 
southern division of the State, southeast of the marl belt, is 
about 450,000 acres. The pine-land belts have an aggregate 
area of 486,000 acres, leaving at least 800,000 acres of these 
situated as to be accessible by railways traversing them from 
the large cities and also near to tide-water navigation. Tlie 
maps of the Geological Survey show the location and the 
extent of these lands, their railway lines and their relation to 
the settlements already made and to tlic cities of the State and 
of the adjacent States. 

The soils of these tracts are sandy and not naturally so rich 
and fertile as the more heavy clay soils of the limestone, the 
red shale and tlic marl districts of the State, but they are not 
so sandy and so coarse-grained as to be non-productive, as is 
the case with some of the pine-land areas. The hitter are 
often deficient in plant-food and are deservedly characterized 
as "Pine Barrens," and too ])oor for farm purposes. The 
growth of wood (oak and pine), as well as chemical analyses, 
shows that the oak-land soils contain the elements of plant 
production. Thoy are not so well suited to pasturage or to 
continnous cropijing as naturally-rich virgin soil?, hence they 



XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 77 

are better fitted for raising vegetables, melons, sweet potatoes, 
small fruits, peaches and pears than wheat, Indian com, hay 
and other farm staples. The eminent superiority of this kind 
of farming in New Jersey over the old routine of wheat, hay, 
corn and potatoes is so well known that it is useless to do more 
than refer to the fact. The profitable farming is now in rais- 
ing those crops which can be produced on these South Jersey 
soils. The success at Hammonton, Egg Harbor City, Vine- 
land and other places is notable, and equally good results are 
to be had at a hundred or more places as well situated as they 
are. These lands are sold at a merely nominal figure, and the 
settler saves in capital and interest account. They are easily 
cleared of brushwood or standing timber, and the wood is 
salable in all this part of the State at remunerative prices, 
often producing a larger return than the original cost of the 
land. The soil is easily cultivated, and throughout most of 
the year it is possible to work. The long working season and 
the short and mild winter favor the arrangement of work so 
that all is done with the least outlay for help. 

The West Jersey railway, the Pennsylvania and the Phila- 
delphia and Reading's Atlantic City railroad, the Philadel- 
phia and Seashore railway, the Kew Jersey Southern rail- 
road, and other branch roads tributary to these main lines, 
afford excellent transportation facilities for access to Xew 
York, Philadelphia and the cities of the State. The Co- 
hansey, Maurice and Mullica rivers head well up near the 
northwest limits of these lands, and their navigable reaches 
run for miles across them. The waters of the Delaware bay 
and the ocean are within a few miles of a large part of this 
oak-land domain. 

The advantages of an old-settled and Eastern State, lying 
between Xew York and Philadelphia and Baltimore, and 
within easy reach of these large markets, of a soil which is 
easily tilled and generous and quick in its response to feeding, 
and of low-priced lands, are such as to commend them with 
equal, if not greater, force thari do the ricli prairie soils of a 
Xew West, or the low prices and cheap lands of the abandoned 
hillsides of Xew England. 



78 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



MARL. 



Alarl deposits extend from Raritan bay and tlie Atlantic- 
ocean southeasterly across the State to Delaware bay at Salem. 
Its length is one hundred miles, its breadth running from 
nineteen miles at the northeast point and nine at the south- 
east point at Woodstown. The area included in this forma- 
tion is not far from 1,250 square miles. 

These beds or strata of marl dip towards the southeast. 
They differ in mineral composition and appear to have lain 
without disturbance in relation to each other ever since their 
deposition from the ocean. 

When first discovered and for many years thereafter those 
nuirls had a wide use. Some of the richer deposits were 
carted in wagons by farmers, during the winter months 
chiefly, many miles distant from the place of deposit. They 
were very valuable in the restoration of exhausted soils. By 
the use of marl, clover and other grasses were produced as 
never before, and with the advent of such crops the exhausted 
huiinis was restored, the soil was enlivened and quickened, 
crops of potatoes, wheat, hay, &c., followed, and a new and 
profitable agriculture took the place of sterility of soil and 
unprofitable work. 

Since commercial or manufactured fertilizers have been 
made possible by the discoveries of chemistry, these mineral 
]iiamii('s are not so extensively used, but their value is as 
great as formerly, and those who live near these deposits have 
an unfailing source of fertility near by, which costs l)ut little, 
and only needs Judicious application to make a good profit to- 
llii' fnriiici' wlio uses i(. 



XEW JEESEY HAXD-BOOK. 



The analysis liere given is an average of five analyses of 
Squankum marls from as many different marl deposits near 
Farmingdale (Squanknm), Monmouth county. 

Phosphoric Acid. Sulphuric Acid. Silicic Acid and Sand. Potash. 



3.58 0.97 53.15 



6. to 



Lime. Magnesia. Alumina. Oxide of Iron. Water, 

3.27 1.75 8.79 15.94 8.93 



so NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 



FOREST AREAS, VALUES, &c. 



In the foregoing articles Init little reference has been made 
to the extent, location and \alue of the wooded area of the 
State. The forests are intimately associated with the health- 
fulness, beauty and water-supply of a State, in addition to the 
commercial value of the annual lumber output. 

The following brief statements in relation to the forests of 
New Jersey are extracted from an address before the New 
Jersey State Board of Agriculture at its annual meeting, 
January, 1900, by Professor C. C. Yermeule, Topographer 
Geological Survey New Jersey : 

"There has been a steady improvement in the forests of 
Xew Jersey, which are unquestionably as extended in area and 
more luxuriant than they were at the middle of the nine- 
teenth century. 

"It is true that to-day our State has not, and is not likely to 
have in the near future, an important logging or sawed lumber 
industry, for most of our heavy forests were cut off before 
18G0. The census figures for 1890, while perhaps incomplete, 
afford a means of comparison at least. At that date the saw- 
mills reported merchantable lumber cut from only 8,355 
acres, whereas in New York the acreage was 120 times and in 
Pennsylvania 175 times as much. The yield of- merchantable 
lumber per acre was 4,986 feet, board measure, in New Jer- 
sey, 5,G31 feet in New York, 10,10-1 feet in Pennsylvania, and 
from 5,413 to 8,714 feet in the South Atlantic States, so that 
we were low in the scale. But in the value on the stmup, per 
thousand feet of lumber, we were far in the lead; the figures 
for New Jersey being $5.60; for New York, $1.90; for Penn- 
sylvania, $2.25, and for the South Atlantic States, from 86 
cents to $2.86. 



XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 81 



"The demand for fuel, telegraph, telephone and trolley- 
poles, piling and railroad ties, is sufficient to absorb the entire 
product of our forests. For such uses chestnut may be most 
profitably cut at from 35 to 45 years old. Oak at from -iO to 
50 years. Excepting the fuel, or cord-wood, in which there is 
now very little profit, these uses afford as profitable an outlet 
as merchantable lumber, and the forest can be more frequently 
cut. Some years ago there was much more cutting of cord- 
wood, hoop-poles and coaling than at present, consequently 
the wood was cut off younger, at about 20 to 35 years, instead 
of 35 to 50 years. 

"Such are the economic conditions which determine the 
present forest age and tendencies. Let me explain that I use 
the word forest to include all land devoted to timber-raising, 
consequently stump-land, brush-land and all stages of growth, 
up to merchantable timber, are classed as forest. 

"The total area of forest in ISTew Jersey measures 2,069,819 
acres. The cleared farm land is almost exactly equal in area, 
viz., 1,999,117 acres; in round numbers 2,000,000 acres of 
each. Of this, 800,000 acres is practically all deciduous 
timber, mainly chestnut, the several varieties of oak, maple, 
with many other kinds interspersed; 1,200,000 acres is con- 
iferous forest, mainly pitch pine on the upland and white 
cedar in the swamps. This coniferous forest is the well- 
known pine belt of Southern New Jersey. 

"There are two great forest regions. The largest is the 
coniferous forest, 1,200,000 acres in extent, in Southern New 
Jersey. Next comes the forest of the Northeastern Highlands, 
211,000 acres, covering the northern portions of Morris and 
Passaic counties, the southeastern border of Sussex and a 
small part of Bergen. Next in size is the forest region of 
Kittatinny mountain, in Sussex and Warren counties, com- 
prising 58,000 acres. 

"A smaller area, but a notable one, is the Palisades moun- 
tain forest, in Bergen county. We have here 11,000 acres of 
fine forest, with many trees 20 to 30 inches in diameter and 60 
to 80 feet in height, surrounded by the dense urban and sub- 



82 XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



urban population of that section near Xew York City. This- 
forest seems quite as worthy of preservation as the Palisades 
themselves. Indeed it is a remarkable fact that Bergen 
county, as a whole, has 40 acres of forest to 60 acres of cleared 
land, and much really valuable timber, although so near the 
large cities. 

"The trap ridges. First, Second and Somiand mountains,- 
are quite well wooded, and so is the southern part of ^Middle- 
sex county, especially the watershed of South river. 

"The most completely deforested sections are the Earitan 
valley, including Piscataway township, in Middlesex, and 
nearly all of Somerset and Hunterdon counties, Mercer 
county, and the belt of fertile land extending back about 12 
miles from the Delaware river from Trenton down to Bridge- 
ton. Similarly bare of forest are the valleys of Warren county 
and a small area about the Shrewsbury river, in ^[onmouth 
county. All of these districts have loss than 13 acres of forest 
to 100 acres of upland. The beautiful Kittatinny valley, in 
Sussex and northern AVarren, has 19 acres of forest to 100 
acres of upland. 

"When we consider the excellence of the timber, however, 
we find that, as a general rule, those portions of the State 
having the smallest acreage of forest have the most valuable 
timber. This is partly because this timber is owned and cared 
for in connection with farms, and ])artly because the soil is 
better. The farmers of Xew Jersey have quite generally ap- 
preciated the value of ten acres or so of timber connected with 
their farms, and, notably on the red sandstone, this timber 
on the farms has not only sup]ilie(l the farmer with fuel, 
fencing and an occasional stick of timber, but has gone on 
increasing in size until the otVcr of the lumberman becomes 
a tem]>ting one, and the steam saw-mill does its work. There 
is still much heavy timber scattered over the red sandstone 
and clay and marl regions. I'lie occurrence of trees from 24 
to 36 inches in diameter here is much more common than 
diameters of 1'2 to 24 inches in the Hiirhlands. 



XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 83- 

"The land now occupied b}' forest probabl\" returns an 
aggregate product worth $4,000,000 annually, and affords 
emploj'ment to many persons. Some of the agricultural 
sections are too bare of forest. Every farm has waste-land, 
which should be in forest. The ravines and hillsides of the 
red shale country are of no use for cultivation, and many side 
hills here and in the State wash badly if ploughed. All 
these should be kept in woods, thus affording wind-breaks, 
shade for cattle, and the necessary fuel, fencing, &c., for the 
farmer. If forest can be profitably managed by any one, it 
can be by the farmer in connection with his farm. The nec- 
essary pruning can be done when he cuts his fuel, and the 
product can be gathered at seasons when there is little other 
work. If the forest is already there, care for it : if not, plant 
a few trees — a few chestnuts, oaks, hickories, maples and wal- 
nuts; keep the cattle out of the young growth, thin it wlien 
necessary, and nature will do the rest. The waste places will 
become beautiful, your farm more valuable, and you will soon 
derive an annual profit from it. 

"Of the 2,000,000 acres of forest in the State, 40,003 acres 
may be cut each year — 16,000 acres of oak and chestnut and 
24,000 acres of pine and cedar — without causing any diminu- 
tion in the present visible timber-supply, for it will, at this 
rate, take fifty years to cut it all, and we may tlien begin 
again. At present there is not so much as this cut. 

"Our forests are well worthy of serious attention, because of 
their beneficial effect upon the water-supply, their importance 
in preserving the favorable climatic conditions, their attract- 
iveness, and the value of their product, and the forest-owner 
should have the benefit of the same kind of assistance and 
suggestion that has been extended by the State to the farmer^, 
the miner and other industries." 



84 XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 



WASTE LAND. 



While presenting, in a very brief outline, the agricultnral 
-characteristics and possibilities of the several counties of the 
State in the preceding descriptions, we do not claim that every 
foot of Xew Jersey's soil will respond to spade and plow with 
enormous crops. It has its proportion of waste-land, or land 
not naturally adapted to agriculture, and, in this respect, does 
not differ from other States. But we do claim that all its 
productive land will reward intelligent culture and judicious 
management with jDaying crops, at near markets. 

By waste-land is meant marshes and marsh-meadows, sour 
.and wet lands, steep and rocky hill or mountain sides, and 
■sandy plains not possessing a fruitful soil. (But even a large 
portion of such lands return some product of wood, stone, 
pasture or coarse hay.) All such and similar lands may be 
considered as coming under the term "not naturally adapted 
to agriculture;" and, although such land might be brought 
into productiveness, it is not likely that it will be until the 
increased profits from agricultural products will warrant such 
an outlay of money for labor and fertilizers. 

Through ignorance of the natural capability of such land 
to produce profitable crops, attempts have, from time to time, 
been made to cultivate and improve them, not only in ISTew 
Jersey, but also in other of the Eastern States; and where 
such attempts have resulted in failure and desertion, such 
farms have been erroneously classed as ''abandoned farms;" 
but the fact is they are not qualified by nature to produce 
paying crops. Strictly speaking, there are no "abandoned 
farms" in Xcw Jersev. 




^r^ 



■ ^,- / , 



■>! '^v ar 



Old Hiidye ami New IJrunswick Road. ( iJefurt: linpiovemciU.) 




Old Bridge and New I'.ninswick Road. (After Improvement.) 



XEW JEllSEY HAND-BOOK. 85- 



TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES. 



The transportation facilities of Xew Jersey, as a State, are 
unsurpassed. There is no place more than seven miles distant 
from some railroad, and new roads, both steam and electric, 
are built from year to year. The numerous inland waterways, 
consisting of navigable streams and canals, afford additional 
means of cheap transportation. 

The total mileage of railroads, not including fractions of 
miles, in the State January 1st, 1900, is 2,278 miles; of 
canals, 173 miles. The assessed valuation of the railroad and 
canal property in 1900 is $221,410,459. These properties 
were taxed for State and local purposes in 1900 $1,520,826.07. 

The taxes from these and other corporate interests, added 
to other State incomes, makes it possible for New Jersey to 
get along without a State tax, except for school puposes, and 
even this is being rapidly reduced and bids fair to become a 
State instead of an individual matter, liberal appropriations 
having been made by the last and previous Legislatures from 
the State funds for school expenses. 

In this connection it is proper to refer to the superior sys- 
tem of wagon-road improvement, inaugurated some years ago, 
and which has grown so rapidly. The road question has been 
a prominent one for many years, and some of the most valu- 
able enactments have been initiated and secured by the State 
Board of Agriculture. This is especially the case with the 
Stone Eoad law. 

This law was passed in 1891, and allows the State, under 
certain prescribed conditions, to aid the counties and the 
property-holders, along the line of road to be improved, in 
defraying the cost of construction, a»d is therefore known as 
the "State Aid" law. This system of road-building originated 



86 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

in New Jersey, and has become noted over this entire con- 
tinent. 

Under this law there has been bnilt over six hundred miles 
•of hard roads. The counties and other municipalities have 
constructed as mam- more miles, so this State can present to 
the traveling public over twelve hundred miles of hard roads, 
passable ^ith heavih'-loaded teams at all times of the year, 
in all kinds of weather. 

It has given continuous lines east and west, north and south 
throughout the State, connecting all the large towns and fine 
farming sections with the large cities of this and adjoining 
States, thus giving unrivaled opportunities for marketing 
farm and garden products by the producer, with his own team, 
to the doors of the consumer, thus insuring the best possible 
price and saving vast sums in freights and commissions, and 
for the passage of pleasure vehicles over the cultivated plains 
and through the fine mountain scenery of the State. 

The numerous hard roads that can be seen in any portion of 
the State, and the enjoyment most citizens have from their 
use, is inducing all of our communities to take measures to 
have many more miles paved with stone and gravel. The 
demand is so great the inhabitants are constantly insisting 
upon building ahead of the State appropriation, in order that 
they may immediately enjoy them. We are now spending 
about five hundred thousand dollars a year for improved roads 
annually. 

Xew Jersey has made a most gratifying growth, as re- 
vealed by the new census. Its rate of increase of thirty per 
cent, is matched by no State east of Texas and Minnesota. 
Its gain in the last decade of 438,736 people has made it, 
although one of the smallest States in the Union, the six- 
teenth State in point of population — Khode Island and Mass- 
achusetts being the only States having more people to the 
square mile than New Jersey — and this growth is largely due 
to its iulmiraMc i-ond system. Besides those already built, 
over five hundred milts more are ])ef ilioiKn] for. the esliiiiated 
• cost of which is aliout two million dollars. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 87 

These roads have made it possible to extend the free rural 
mail system and numerous routes have been establislied. A 
moment's reflection will convince intelligent people that this 
fourfold improvement — railroads, trolley roads, stone roads 
and free delivery of mail matter — relieves rural life of its 
former monotony and isolation, and, added to this, the neigh- 
borhood telephone is being introduced. 



NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 



THE STATE AGRICULTURAL 
COLLEGE. 



By an act of the State Legislature, iu 1864, the income 
from the land-script fund for the maintenance "of a college 
to teach such branches of learning as are related to agricul- 
ture and the mechanic arts" was directed to be paid to the 
Trustees of Eutgers College, for the salaries of teachers in 
that branch of the college designated in the act as the State 
Agricultural College. The annual income to the college from 
this source is $5,800, and, in order to meet the further require- 
ments of the law, Avhich provided for forty free scholarships 
to students from the various counties of the State, the insti- 
tution was enlarged, additional professors appointed, and a 
farm of 100 acres bought and maintained. 

In 1888 the Trustees of the college offered ten extra scholar- 
ships, and in 1890 a further act of the Legislature provided 
for an additional scholarship to each- Assembly district. These 
scholarships are now all filled, and there have been but few 
vacancies since the provisions of the acts were accepted by the 
college. More than 830 students have been in attendance at 
the institution, of which over 250 have graduated, the re- 
mainder having attended for shorter or longer periods, as cir- 
cumstances permitted, nearly all of whom ane now engaged in 
farming or other industrial pui'suits and taking prominent 
places in business affairs. 

Tn 1890 an act providing for the more complete endowment 
and support of the Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture 
and tlie Mechanic Arts was passed by Congress. By the ])ro- 
visions of tliis act tlie sum of $15,000 was appropriated for the 
vear ending June ;30(h, 1890, and an increase of the amount 



NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 89 



by $1,000 until the annual appropriation shall be $25,000. 
This addition to the funds of the Agricultural College was 
very grateful, since the early appropriation of less than 
$7,000 had not been supplemented by any appropriations by 
the State Government, as has been the policy in most of the 
States of the Union. 

In 1891 the regular course in agriculture was thoroughly 
revised, and the various departments more completely equip- 
ped. In 1892 College Extension in Agriculture was begun. 
This feature of the college work seems to meet a well-defined 
want, and promises to be of great usefulness. Several courses 
of lectures have been given by the Professors of Agriculture, 
Botany and Entomology, and the attendance and interest in 
the work are growing rapidly. 

The aim of the State College is to meet the present press- 
ing demands on the part of the farmers for a broader educa- 
tion and a more detailed knowledge of the principles which 
govern their business, while, at the same time, maintaining its 
high standard as a scientific institution; and, in order that 
this purpose shall be fulfilled, there must be hearty co-opera- 
tion, not only on the part of the farmer and his organizations, 
but on the part of the State, in providing liberal endowments 
and in exercising a fostering care. 

Ct 



90 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT 
STATIONS. 



The New Jersey Experiment Stations are located in the 
north-central portion of the State, between the hilly region, 
which constitutes the northern third of the State, and the 
southern plain, between the Delaware river and the Atlantic 
oceans; one is maintained entirely by the State, the other by 
the National appropriation. The State institution, the New 
Jersey State Agricultural Experiment Station, was organized 
in connection with the State Agricultural College in April, 
1880, in accordance with an act of the State Legislature. The 
New Jersey Agricultural College Experiment Station was 
organized early in 1888 as a department of the Agricultural 
College, in accordance with the act of Congress. On organi- 
zation of the College Station, the lines of experiment were 
divided, the chemical work being assigned to the State Sta- 
tion, and entomology, botany and horticulture, biology and 
chemical geology to the College Station, the policy being that 
the work of each Station should supplement that of the other. 

ORGANIZATION. 

The State Station is controlled by a Board of Managers, 
consisting of the Governor of the State and the Board of 
Visitors of the State Agricultural College, appointed by him 
for a term of two years, and com])Osed of two members from 
each Congressional district, together with the President and 
Professor of Agriculture of the college. Tiiis ])oard holds a 
meeting at least once a year to act upon the report of the 
Director and upon such recommendations as he may make. 
The ])olicy has l)een to relegate the direction and manage- 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 91 



ment of the work of the Station to the Director. The officers 
consist of a President, Vice President, Secretary and Treas- 
urer. Members of the board are reimbursed for actual ex- 
penses. 

The College Station is under the control of the Board of 
Trustees of the Agricultural College. The management of 
the Station is delegated to an Executive Committee of the 
board, consisting of seven members. 

EQUIPMENT. 

The Station buildings comprise a laboratory building, 
greenhouses and dairy-house. The laboratory is a three-story 
building, 50 by 100 feet, with basement and attic. The base- 
ment is of rough stone, the superstructure of brick. Tt was 
planned especially for the Stations, is well equipped for the 
lines of work carried on, and provides ample accommodations 
for offices and laboratories of the Chemist, Botanist, Ento- 
mologist, Biologist, Geologist and other specialists who may 
be engaged in experimental work. The Stations also make 
use of the college buildings. 

Five acres of land are used in field experiments with fruits 
and vegetables, and two acres in experiments with plant 
diseases. These areas were transferred by the college author- 
ities to the authorities of the Stations in 1895, no compensa- 
tion being paid bv the Stations. In addition the college 
authorities transferred to the Stations the remainder of the 
farm (about 85 acres) in April, 1896. This land is used for 
experiments in dairv farming. The business of the farm 
is kept as a separate account, and the income is sufficient 
to pay running expenses and contribute to the cost of ex- 
periments. 

The Stations own but little live stock. They make use, 
however, of the college herd of about 35 cows in their experi- 
mental work in dairv farming. Permanent herds are main- 
tained, though individual animals are purchased from time 
to time for use in special experiments. 



92 NEV/ JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 

The collection of specimens in the botanical division con- 
sists of a nearly complete set of the vascular plants of the 
State, represented by 7,000 specimens; a catalogued myco- 
logical herbarium of about 40,000 specimens, and a set of the 
weeds of the world, with the seeds of., several hundred kinds 
arranged in cases. The collection in the division of ento- 
mology is in two parts — a systematic series and an economic 
series. In the systematic series are over 4,000 species, repre- 
sented by at least 25,000 specimens. The economic series is 
very complete, and represents all of the usual injurious insects 
occurring in the State, in all stages, with specimens of the 
injury caused by them. Each subject studied is illustrated as 
far as possible or necessary by microscopic slides, and of these 
between 2,500 and 2,600 have been accumulated. The divi- 
sion has also nearly 900 lantern slides, illustrating, a great 
range of subjects in economic entomology. Station workers 
have access to the college museum, which is very well supplied 
with mineralogical specimens. The library contains 2,855 
works on agriculture and related sciences, besides all of the 
leading American and foreign scientific journals, and the 
college library contains 60,000 volumes. 

The Stations are well equipped with, apparatus, a number 
of pieces of which have been devised by Station officers. 

FINANCIAL SUPPORT, 

The income of the State Station is derived from an appro- 
priation by the State for maintenance. The income of the 
College Station is derived from the National fund. The 
iiK'oiiK' of tlie Stations during the present fiscal year is as 
follows : 

State Station, regular appropriation $15,000 00 

for inspection of feeds 3,000 00 

for printing bulletins 1,000 00 

CoUfge Station, Tnited States appropriation 15,000 00 

Total .«34,000 00 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 93 

The State Station is charged with the inspection of com- 
mercial fertilizers and commercial feeds. The Station also 
devotes considerable time and attention to the analysis of 
standard fertilizing materials, waste products and special 
fertilizer mixtures. The primary purpose of this work is to 
inform the farmers of their composition and the relative cost 
of the constituents in them and in regular brands of com- 
mercial fertilizers. The New Jersey Stations were the first 
American Stations to advocate the home-mixing of fertilizers. 
Inspection of nursery stock has recently been added to the 
duties of the Entomologist. 

The scientific investigations of the Stations have been 
mainly in the interests of dairy husbandry and horticulture, 
which are the principal branches of agriculture in the State. 
A division of horticulture was not organized as such until 
1895, although investigations in the interest of this industry 
along the lines of plant diseases and entomology have received 
a great deal of attention since the organization of the College 
Station.* Immediately upon the organization of the horti- 
cultural division, it set about making a statistical survey of 
the fruit interests of the State preliminary to determining 
upon lines of experimental work. 

The work in dairy husbandry is along lines of economics of 
the dairy. It has to do with the crops best suited for dairy 
farming, the cost of production, their relative value, rotations 
and methods of preservation. Considerable attention has 
been paid to the more strictly business side of dairying, such 
as the influence of quality, as represented by cleanliness, &c., 
upon the salability of milk and cream. A large number of 
feeds, fodders and farm crops have been analyzed, among 
which were a number of the newer forage crops grown especi- 
ally for soiling purposes. 

*The first compilation on entomological subjects, in connection with State work, 
was prepared by the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture Mr. Franklin Dye, 
in 1886 and was published in the Annual Report of said Board, in 1887. It was 
entitled '* Entomology : comprising Cu s and over two hundred Delineations of 
Various Insects, with some General Truths in Applied Entomology." Prof. Geo. D. 
Hulst was chosen Entomologist of the Station in 1887. 



94 NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 

The Station has alwaj-s taken a prominent part in the 
development and improvement of chemical methods, having 
for their object the shortening of chemical processes without 
lessening the accuracy of the results. Among such have been 
studies on methods for determining total nitrogen from ni- 
trates and on the availability of organic nitrogen. In co- 
operation with the United States Department of Agriculture, 
the Station investigated the changes which occur in the com- 
position of maize, oats, wheat and buckwheat in breakfast 
foods in the various methods of preparation. Studies were 
made on the bread-supply of a few of the larger cities of the 
State, the object of which was to secure information concern- 
ing the chemical composition of bread, to ascertain the rela- 
tion of the weight of bread to the selling price of the loaf, and 
to study the changes which occur in the baking of bread and 
the relative cost of nutrients in bread and in flour. 

The Entomologist has made important original investiga- 
tions on the peach borer, strawberry roller, asparagus bettle, 
rose bug, sinuate pear borer, certain katydids, the horn fly, 
potato-stalk borer, pear midge and tulip soft scale. Mono- 
graphic accounts have been published of the insects attacking 
the cranberr}^ blackberry, cultivated Cucurbitaceae, sweet 
potato, city shade trees, and a general history of plant lice, 
with methods of treatment, has been prepared. The life 
history of the squash bug, apple plant louse and a number of 
the more usual garden pests have been worked out, and means 
of repression suggested. Experiments have been carried on to 
ascertain, if possible, the reasons for the resistance of wire- 
worms to insecticides. 

In the botanical division the most attention has been paid 
to investigations of diseases of the sweet potato and of 
greenhouse plants. It has been shown that probably the 
blight of the eggplant is identical in nature with one -of the 
diseases of the sweet potato. Experiments in the treatment 
of the sweet potato decay have shown that sulphur or kainit 
may be effectively used. Among the diseases of greenhouse 
plants that have been studied may be mentioned a fungus 



NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 95 

disease of the violet and root galls. Field experiments have 
been made with various substances, with a view to finding a 
reme43' for the cranberry scald. A serious disease of the bean 
was shown to be due to bacteria. A common disorder of culti- 
vated roses was found to be due chietly to root galls and 
anthracnose. 

The diseases of the sugar beet have been studied, and it has 
been shown that Bordeaux mixture will, in a large measure, 
prevent the leaf spot. Experiments in pruning and the appli- 
cation of manures and fertilizers for eradication of pear blight 
are in progress. Field and laboratory experiments have been 
made with the asparagus rust, and Bordeaux mixture has 
been shown to be an effective remedy. 

Experiments have been made with different fungicides on a 
large number of fruits, vegetables and ornamental plants. 
Bordeaux mixture was taken as a standard, with which three 
other compounds were compared, the lime being replaced by 
sulphur, potash and ammonia, respectively. Experiments 
made to test the susceptibility of various plants to disease 
showed that they differ greatly in this respect. 

A study has been made of the weeds of the State, particu- 
larly with reference to their means of dissemination, includ- 
ing propagation by underground parts, and a check list of the 
weeds of North America has been prepared. The relative 
aggressiveness of different weeds is being tested experiment- 
ally on a small plat. Experiments have been made with a 
fungus enemy cf the thistle. The subject of poisonous plants 
has received some attention. 

The Biologist has made original investigations on tubercu- 
losis. The question of what constitutes a tuberculous reaction 
has been studied, and a revision of previous practice made in 
the direction of greater accuracy. Observations on the normal 
temperature variations in cows led to a more accurate determi- 
nation of the extent to which the injection of tuberculin affects 
individual animals. In experiments to determine whether 
healthy cattle are injuriously affected by being subjected to 
the tuberculin test, no such effect was observed. It was also 



96 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

shown by experiments that with cattle in the first stages of 
tuberculosis, repeated injections of tuberculin tend to cure 
the disease. The prevalence of milk fever and infectious 
abortion in the State have been investigated. Studies have 
been made on the germ content of milk, as found in the udder, 
and at various stages from the time it is drawn from the cow 
until it is bottled. 

DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION. 

The bulletins of both Stations are issued in the same series. 
In the regular series 149 have been issued, and in a special 
series 19, lettered from A to S, inclusive. The State Station 
has issued 20 annual reports, and the College Station 13, 
which, however, have been bound in the same volume since 
the establishment of the latter Station. The reports contain 
a full account of all work to be reported on for the year. 

The mailing list contains about 10,000 names, all of which 
were placed there by the personal request of persons receiving 
the bulletins. The Director, Dr. Edward B. Voorhees, is the 
author of a work on "The First Principles of Agriculture," 
and another on "Fertilizers." The Entomologist, Dr. John 
B. Smith, is the author of a work on "Economic Entomology." 
The correspondence amounts to about 7,000 letters a year. 
Members of the staff take part quite commonly in farmers' 
meetings throughout the State. 

The general results of work are thus summarized in a Ee- 
port on the Work of the Experiment Stations of the Country, 
hy Dr. A, C. True, of the United States Department of 
Agriculture : 

"The agriculture of New Jersey is intensive, and hence 
fertilizer problems are of primary importance. For many 
years the investigations of the State Station along this lii>e 
have been well known, and its management of the fertilizer 
control has been very successful. The work in horticulture 
and dairy husbandry is noteworthy for the systematic way in 
which it is conducted and for the practical value of the re- 



98 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



The oldest State farmers' organizations are the State Board 
of Agriculture and the State Grange, both organized in 1873, 
and the State Horticultural Society, organized two years 
later. These societies are contemporaneous and are mutually 
helpful. The purpose and work of the Grange are well 
known, and its comprehensive efficiency as a farmers' organi- 
zation is acknowledged. Local farmers' clubs existed, how- 
ever, in different parts of the State as early as 1840. 

The State Board of Agriculture is organized as a repre- 
sentative body. The members of all agricultural and horti- 
cultural societies, farmers' clubs, granges of the Patrons of 
Husbandry and other agricultural associations constitute the 
membership. 

The Board of Directors consists of — 

Class A — Two members of the Board of Managers of the 
Geological Survey, to be appointed by said board; two mem- 
bers of the Board of Visitors of the State Agricultural Col- 
lege, to be appointed by said board. 

Class B — The Professor of Agriculture in the State Agri- 
cultural College, the President and Director of the State 
Experiment Station, and the Master and Secretary of the 
State Grange, Patrons of Husbandry. 

Class C — Two delegates from the State Horticultural So- 
ciety, two delegates from the Cranberry Growers' Association, 
tv/o delegates from the State Poultry Association, one dele- 
gate from each Pomona Grange, and two delegates from each 
County Board of Agriculture auxiliary to it. 

The board at the annual meeting elects its President, Vice 
President, Secretary, Treasurer and Executive Committee; 
the Secretary being elected for a five-year term. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



99 



The total amount appropnatod to the board by the State is 
«(> noo Out of this comes the salary of the Secretary, Treas- 
urfrand tk hire, appropriaUous to State HortiouUnra 
Sode ty and County Boards of Agriculture, and the expense 
'f"le annual meeting, of the Executive Commrttee and o 
other committees appointed, whtle engaged in the duttes o£ 
the board, and also expressage and postage. 

From a small beginning the board has grown to be a strong 

representatrve body, and exerts a very helP'^'/f 7,"=;^': 
advancement of agriculture throughout the State. It iinds its 
duties in investigating and recordrng whatever concerns the 
grtcultural rnterests of New Jersey. .^^^ ^:f^^ 
chtde facts relating to the various soils of the State, their 
r^ical and mechanical condition their P-l-t--s - 
susceptibility of improvement; the best natural and aitific.a 
;m.ers, tlir adaptability to crops; the >;-;. -'^f °/ 
rearing, improving and fattening stock, including the pre 
vention and eradication of all forms of disease amoiig them 
the examination of new implements, and processes of working 
he soil and the best method of drainage; f^ --^"^ »* 
farm management as applied to market gardening, faim ng 
and forestry; the proper laying out of a farm mto pasture, 
n"e dow tiUod land and woods; the location, construction 
Tnd onomy of farm buildings and fences; the methods 
"d principlL of beautifying rural homes, and the consider - 
Ton of what legislation may be needed to secure the interests 

n"f T *1TT11PTS 

It seeks to maintain communication with all societies, asso- 
ciations and clubs organized for the above purpose m the 
State, to gather from them the results of their observation 
and experiments, and to furnish them in return ve ults 
iined from other societies or digested material drawn from 
a comparison of the whole of the results together 

It makes its investigations and results useful to the whole 
State bv printing and distributing, as widely as possible, its 
r^tts and pap«s and the results of experiments conducted 
under its advice in various parts of the State. 



100 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

The lecture work of the board, since 1890, has been ex- 
tended and S3^stemized by the organization of what are termed 
Farmers' Institutes. These are conducted during the fall and 
winter of each year. In addition to these, the County Boards 
of Agriculture, which are auxiliary to the State board and are 
peculiar to the New Jersey system, hold meetings quarterly 
or oftener throughout the year. All the counties, except two, 
are organized, and local societies of agriculture, horticulture, 
&c., affiliate with the county boards. 

The State Agricultural College and the Board of Agricul- 
ture work in harmony in providing lectures and s))eakers for 
the institutes and the county boards. By this arrangement 
the farmers of the State have opportunity to utilize the latest 
information on agricultural subjects. The growing popu- 
larity of the lecture work is a strong endorsement of its value. 

In all these associations, whether boards or Granges, the 
subjects of farm improvement and agricultural progress are 
discussed, progressive ideas evolved and reduced to practice. 
Thus, the road question has had its greatest uplift by the 
farmers, and whatever progress, on safe lines, has been made 
is largely due to the interest they have shown. 

Free rural mail delivery has been urged, and a number of 
routes have been established lately, especially where stone 
and other good roads exist. 

A more equitable method of taxation has been secured, 
and other matters of like importance considered. 

The board's otlieial location is in the office of the Secretary, 
at the State House, Trenton. As an organization, it has 
nothing to do with the mauagoineut of fairs in the State. 
These are under separate control. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 101 



STATE WEATHER SERVICE. 



BY EDWARD W. MC GANN, DIRECTOR. 



The State Weather Service, as established and now in 
(-peration luider the laws of New Jersey by an act, entitled 
"An act to establish a weather service in New Jersey,*' ap- 
proved June 19th, 1890, and amended April 7th. 1892, appro- 
priating $1,000 annually, is an organization of voluntary 
observers, co-operating with the United States Weather Bu- 
reau and the State Experiment Station, the National Bureau 
detailing an experienced meteorologist, who is the Director 
and supervises the work carried on in a commodious office 
furnished by the State Experiment Station. Here all the 
records are kept and the various data received from the out- 
lying stations, carefully verified and summarized and issued 
in tTie form of a weekly weather-crop bulletin and monthly 
and annual meteorological reports. Copies of these reports 
are mailed to all co-operating observers, the various State 
weather services in other States, to the public libraries and to 
members of the agricultural societies and Granges of the 
State. 

Each meteorological station is fully equipped with stand- 
ard self-registering instruments, consisting of a maximum 
thermometer, minimum thermometer, rain and snow gauge, 
measuring rod and instrument shelter and the necessary 
forms, stationery, &c., for use in recording the readings of 
these instruments. The stations now reporting to the central 
office are as follows : Meteorological stations, 57 ; display and 
disseminating stations, 66, and crop correspondents, 133. 
The service is controlled by a Board of Managers, consisting 
of the following: Dr. Edward B. Voorhees, President; Louis 



102 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



A. Voorhees, Treasurer; Professor B. D. Halsted, and Mr. 
Edward W. McGann, Director. 

The State is divided into four climatic divisions, viz., the 
HigMands and Kittatinny valley (8 stations), the Red Sand- 
stone plain (19 stations), the southern interior (23 stations), 
and the seacoast (8 stations). 



THE FOLLOWING TABLES SHOW THE NORMAL TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION (IN- 
CLUDING MELTED SNOW) FOB THE SEVERAL CLIMATIC DIVISIONS OF THE 
STATE FOE EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR AND FOB THE SEASONS. 
DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. 





















»4 




0) 


tZ 




>. 


U 


















M 


.0 


CLIMATIC DIVISIONS. 




3 


X3 










"m 


ti 


a> 


ti 


Fl 




3 

a 

OS 

•-5 





V 
P. 


03 


0! 

a 

a 




3 


p. 








0) 

> 


0) 



a 


Highlands and Kittatinny 




























26.7 
29.1 


27.2 
30.2 


85.6 
87.7 


48.4 
49.0 


59.6 
60.5 


67.9 
69.7 


72.0 
73.8 


70.5 

72.4 


64.2 

65.8 


51.2 
53.6 


41.1 
43.0 


81 8 


Red Sand Stone Plain 


33.4 


Southern Interior 


31.0 


32.8 


£9.6 


50.6 


62.2 


70.9 


75.2 


73.5 


66.6 


54.5 


44.1 


35.0 




33.5 


31.3 


39.4 


49.1 


59.4 


69.1 


73.1 


72.8 


67.8 


55.9 


45.6 


37 











SEASONS. 


MARCH OF THE 
SEASONS. 




bib 

B 

0. 

CO 


a 

B 


a 

a 

3 
< 


<x> 
a 




> ft 

IS CO 


2^ 

ft3 
QQCO 


2 . 

i 

cCi 




d . 

a lu 

Sa 


Highlands and Kittatinny Valley 

Red SaHd Stone Plain 


49.6 
51.5 
63.0 
53 


47.9 
49.1 
50.8 
49.8 


70.1 
72.0 
73.2 
71.7 


52.2 
54.1 
55.1 
56.8 


28.4 

1 

30.9 

34.3 

84.9 


19.5 
18.2 
16.5 
14 4 


22.2 
22.9 
22.4 
?? 4 


—17.9 
—17.9 
—18.1 
-15.4 


-23.8 
—23.2 


Southern Interior 


—20.8 


Sea Coast 


—18.7 











NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



103 



PKECIPITATION (INCLUDING MELTED SNOW), IN INCHES. 



CLIMATIC DIVISIONS. 


03 

3 

a 

Hi 


g 


.a 

o 

si 


■< 


>> 

as 


s> 

a 

a 


•^ 


So 
< 


a 


1 

O 


a 

% 

Z 


a 

Q 


Highlands and Kittatinnv 
Valley 


3.48 
3.97 
3.3b 


4.22 
4.07 
4.08 
8.85 


3.50 
3.94 
4.02 
4.19 


3.45 
3.27 
3.61 
3.63 


4.73 
4.18 
4.69 
4.07 


3.34 
3.67 
3.57 
3.36 


5.15 
5.14 
4.72 

4.75 


4.51 
4.46 
3.84 
4. 03 


3.72 
3.92 
3.61 
3.65 


3.61 
3.51 
3.73 
3.91 


4.20 
3.95 
4.00 
3.53 


3 ?7 


Red Saud Stone Plain 

Southern Interior 


3.54 
3.25 
'1 ?7 









si 

(V 


n 
a 

CO 


a 
a 

3 
GO 


d 

a 
< 


a 


Highlands and Kittatinnv Valley 


47.18 
47.69 
46.58 
45.92 


11.68 
11.39 
12.32 
11.89 


13.00 
13.27 
12.13 
12.14 


11.53 
11.88 
11.34 
10.99 


10.97 


Red Sand Stone Plain 


11 58 


Southern Interior 


10.83 


Sea Coast 


10.89 







104 



NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 



THE OYSTER AND FISH INDUSTRY 
OF NEW JERSEY. 



The following table, taken from the Report of the Bureau 
of Statistics of New Jersey for 1896, shows the acreage de- 
voted to the oyster industry in the localities named, so far as 
they had been taken up and improved up to that date : 

Cheesequake 4 

Raritau 123 

Keyport 2,760 

Shrewsbury 232 

Barnegat 296 

Tnckerton 528 

(ireat Bay 108 

Egg Harbor 47 

Eagle Bay 184 

Abseeon 360 

Lakes Bay 166 

Ludlams 64 

Great Sounds 61 

Learnings & Townsends 116 

Delaware Bay 7,239 

12,288 

There are thousands of acres adapted, by natural condi- 
tions, to the propagation of oysters that are not yet utilized. 

With proper encouragement and protection, an immense 
business could be built up, which would yield an annual 
revenue of many millions of dollars. So diverse and extended 
is this industry and including, as it does, others, such as 
boat and shipbuilding, sailmaking, blacksmithing, &c., and 
those engaged in taking the oysters to the consumers, also 
hands employed, such as clerks, watchmen, counters, helpers, 
with an average wage of $40 per month, that it is scarcely pos- 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. J 05 

sible to compute the total sum invt'sted in it, or the exact 
amount in protits netted. 

As indicating what it is for other Localities, and thus for 
the entire State at the present time, the following statement, 
for the localities named, furnished through the courtesy of 
Hon. Thomas F. Austin, Superintendent State Oyster Com- 
mission, is suggestive: 

"The oyster industry of Delaware river, Delaware bay and 
Maurice River cove, in this State, is an extensive one and 
capable of indefinite expansion. 

"Nature has, in the conformation of the bay, divided it 
into two distinct sections — the natural beds, i. e., where the 
oyster propagates nat:urally, and the planting bottom, where 
the young oysters are placed after being taken from the 
natural loeds and left to grow to marketable size. 

"The bottom suitable for the propagation of oysters con- 
tains about 90,000 acres, of which not more than 10,000 are 
at this time productive. The planting bottom, or what is 
known as Maurice River cove, contains about 50,000 acres, 
of which 13,000 acres are in actual cultivation; that is, 
these 13,000 acres have been leased by the State to sundry 
lessees. The State has issued about G50 leases, each lease 
averaging four grounds, Avitli an average of five acres per 
ground. 

"The lessees of these grounds pay to the State the nominal 
rental of 35 cents per acre per year. Under State control, 
we are warranted in saying that, within the period of five 
years hence, not less than 25,000 acres will be taken up by 
citizens of this State. 

"For year ending October 31st, 1900, the Superintendent 
of the Commission issued licenses to 540 boats engaged in 
the industry. 

"A careful canvass of the oyster-shippers of Maurice river, 
Bivalve and Greenwich piers, has shown that the value of the 
oysters shipped from this locality — Cumberland county — for 
the past year was two millions two hundred and sixtv thou- 
sand dollars ($2,360,000)." 

u 



106 XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

But the work and profits from the seacoast, bays and rivers 
of the State is not confined to the oyster business. There is 
yearly employment and profit in the clam and fish trade; the" 
shad and sturgeon caught annually in the Delaware river, as 
sold in contiguous markets, amount to many thousand dollars. 

Salem county alone claims a return of $200,000 a year as 
her proportion of this business. In 1897 Salem, Cumberland 
and Gloucester county fishermen secured 8,264,930 pounds of 
shad, yielding $191,33-1. In the same year there was shipped 
from Salem and Cumberland counties 186,475 pounds of 
caviare, yielding $62,158. And the two counties named are 
credited with a catch of 668,231 pounds of sturgeon the same 
year, with a return of $18,71*9. 

Persons living within reach of the coast line of Xew Jersey 
may have the luxuries of the sea the year round, and none 
know their high excellence so well as they who can have them 
fresh from the catch. 



XEW JEKSEY HAND-BOOK. 107 



THE JEWISH COLONIES IN SOUTH 
JERSEY. 



BY BORIS D. BOGEN, PH.D., PRINCIPAL. 



ALLIANCE. 

The first Jewish colony in South Jersey was located in 
Pittsgrove township, Salem county, in 1882. When the per- 
secuted Jews were driven from Kussia a number of wealthy 
and influential Hebrews in the city of New York formed the 
Hebrew Aid Society. This society purchased about 1,100 
acres of land in Pittsgrove township, in the county of Salem, 
a little over six miles northwest of tlie borough of Vineland, 
Cumberland county. 

The settlers numbered about 250 men, women and chil- 
dren. Later on the society proceeded to allot the land in 
tracts of fifteen acres to each family, on which, before the 
winter set in, humble cabins were built and occupied by the 
families, charging each $150, and giving the term of payment 
at thirty-three years, without interest. 

After two or three years the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society 
gave place to the Alliance Land Trust, which gave its name 
to the settlement. The New York Hebrews sent a committee 
to ascertain if anything further was necessary to be done, and 
the sum of $7,000 was distributed to the seventy families to 
enable them to buy agricultural tools and implements. 

The soil at Alliance is a light, sandy loam, not well adapted 
to cereals, of which but little is raised, except a small quan- 
tity of corn for home use. It is excellent for growing fruits, 
berries, grapes and sweet potatoes, and to these, from the 
beginning, the people have turned their attestion, with 
marked success. 



108 NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 

The farmers of Alliance have good stock, the cows especi- 
ally being of the best ; the poultry also will compare favorably 
with any in this section of the State. 

Manufacturing in Alliance has not advanced as rapidly 
as in the later colony at Woodbine ; there is one large factory, 
which is operated by the Alliance Cloak and Suit Company. 
One hundred and fifty hands are employed altogether in the 
factory, where children's coats and cloaks are manufactured. 
The operatives average about $12 per week, and the wages are 
paid weekly and in cash. A large three-story factory has 
been erected a short distance from the old one. The colony of 
Alliance has recently passed from the control of the Alliance 
Land Trust to the Trustees of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, 
which spent $10,000 in public improvement and built twenty 
fine dwellings. 

ROSENHAYN. 

In 1882 the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society, of New York 
City, located six Jewish families at Eosenhayn, and this has 
grown to be a village of some note, with a population of 800. 
It is located on the New Jersey Central railroad, midway be- 
tween the cities of Bridgeton and Vineland. The population 
is composed almost exclusively of Russian and Polish Jews, 
and is about equally divided between industrial and agricul- 
tural pursuits. 

The articles manufactured are clothing, hosiery, foundry 
work, tinware and brick. The number of hands employed is 
as follows: Clothing, 150; brickyard, 17. 

The average wages of the operative is about $10. About fifty 
per cent, own the houses they occupy. The farming portion of 
the community appears to be fairly prosperous. Of the 1,900 
acres comprising the tract, about one-fourth is under culti- 
vation. The soil, as in other colonies, is not well adapted to 
the raising of cereals, and the attention of 'the farmers is 
given to fruit and vegetables. The great source of profit is 
the sweet potato crop. A canning factory is soon to be 



XEW JEESF.Y HAXD-BOOK. 109 



erected, and consequently it will not be necessary to ship the 
berries and tomatoes. The annual value of the crops raised 
is $10,000 to $12,000. 

WOODBIXE. 

This settlement was mapped out in 1891. Woodbine is 
located in Dennis township, in the northwestern section of 
Cape May county; it is fifty-six miles from Philadelphia 
and twenty-five from Cape ]\Iay City and Atlantic City. Two 
railroads-^the West Jersey and Seashore and the South Jer- 
sey give direct communication with the neighboring towns 

and with Philadelphia and Xew York. The tract comprises 
5,300 acres, 2,000 being now improved. 

The town site was laid out in 1899, comprising 800 acres, 
275 of which have been cleared. There are aljout 260 Jewish 
and about 40 Gentile families. Seventy-five per cent, of them 
own their homes. The public buildings comprise the syma- 
gogue, Baptist church, public bath-house and three school 
buildings. There is a fine hotel opposite the West Jersey 
and Seashore Company's station. The manufactories are as 
follows : 

Clothing factory of ^lessrs. Daniel & Bhmienthal, 36 x 178 
feet ; Woodbine Machine and Tool Company, 36 x 280 feet ; 
Quaker City Knitting Company, 49 x 146 feet. 

The above are each two stories high and brick buildings. 
There are also brick and lumber yards ; nine carpenters, four 
bricklayers and twenty-four other mechanics. There are 
twenty'miles of streets laid out, four miles of which have 
been graded and gravelled. There are twelve miles of farm 
roads laid out, improved and in excellent condition ; an elec- 
tric light plant has been installed, the power for which is 
furnished hx the Woodl)ine Machine and Tool Company, 
which also furnishes the power for the factories ; the streets 
are lighted by forty arc lights. There are no running streams 
or surface springs on the Woodbine tract; the water-supply 
is secured from artesian wells, the water from which is 
pumped into two large tanks, one containing 30,000 gallons 
and the other 18,000. 



110 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

The Jews who enter upon farm life are hard workers, and 
from earliest dawn to sundown the hours are spent in labor 
on the farm. There are a nmnber of successful farmers in 
the vicinit,y, and near to the settlement, on the same tract, 
are the grounds of the Baron de Hirsch Agricultural and 
Industrial School, a model institution for secondary educa- 
tion in this countr}^ 

This institution was organized in 1893, when Professor 
H. L. Sabsovich, the Superintendent of the colony, asked 
permission to arrange for weekly scientific lectures to the 
farmers during the winter. This institution, assuming the 
name of the Baron de Hirsch Agricultural and Industrial 
School, was intended to be purely professional, but as this 
school dealt with children of the ages from 12 to 16 years, the 
problem of general education could not be neglected. "To 
make farmers" was the motto in the beginning. "To make 
men and then farmers" has become the ideal later on. 

The professional pvirpose of the institution has been gradu- 
ally superseded by the ideal of general education, and, at 
present, this school stands as a promoter of general second- 
ary education, recognized by the Paris Exposition, which has 
conferred upon this school the honors and privileges con- 
nected with the highest reward of the exposition — the Grand 
Prix. 

The school Avas conducted first as an experiment on a com- 
paratively small basis, but gradually it was increased, and at 
present it comprises an area of 140 acres of cultivated land, 
a considerable number of cattle, poultry-yards, greenhouses, 
dairy and apiary, and, besides this, there is a dormitory for 
the pupils, as well as a school building equipped with the 
most modern improvements. 

The Superintendent, Professor H. L. Sabsovich, is a Rus- 
sian b}?^ birth, and a thorough believer in the power of educa- 
tion based upon the natural development of a child's activity. 
Professor Sabsovich devoted considerable time to the study 
of manual training, a system originated in Russia, and has 
come to the conclusion that the idea of motor-activitv is not 



I 
I 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. Ill 



complete unless supplemented by the different aspects of 
agrictiltural pursuits. Accordingly, the school aims to de- 
velop character through manual labor, following a strictly 
pedagogical sequence proceeding from the simple to the 
complex. 

The pupils admitted to this institution are from 14 to 18 
years of age, and during the three-years' course receive in- 
struction in the general branches of study, theoretical agricul- 
ture, as well as practical work, which consists in taking care of 
the stables and animals, work in the fields, garden, nursery, 
poultry-yards, dairy, hothouses, incubators, brooder-houses, 
apiary and in the shops. The school supplies its pupils with 
full maintenance and instruction free, but the pupils are 
supposed to work for their own livelihood. Hence, while it 
is a purely philanthropic institution, it does not follow the 
usual methods of charity. 

The course of studies is systematically worked out, and 
comprises three successive years, respectively designated 
freshmen, junior and scientific. The instruction in the gen- 
eral branches aims to make good citizens of the scholars, and 
the practical instruction leads to the development of char- 
acter and preparation for scientific, practical farming. The 
life in the institution is rather of a family character. The pu- 
pils partake of the work and are interested in the results of 
the labor, and consider their alma mater their home. Most 
of the pupils are orphans or homeless children, and it is 
remarkable to observe the rapid improvement in their con- 
duct, as well as in their general development, in the com- 
paratively short time. 

At present the number of pupils reaches the maximum of 
accommodation, namely, 110, and the number of applicants 
is so rapidly increasing that it is considered advisable to add 
to the accommodations in the nearest future, so as to increase 
the scope of the influence of the institution. The most in- 
teresting feature in the work of the institution is the sys- 
tematic graduation of the different practical lines in which 
the pupils are engaged. This is quite a new field in educa- 



112 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 



tion, and it is surprising to see the achieved results in the 
comparatively short time of the institution's existence. The 
facult}^, besides instructors in general branches, consists of 
special Superintendents of the different practical depart- 
ments — dairy, poultry, greenhouse, truck and apiary, to which 
must be added the instructor of the shops for repairing and 
making agricultural tools and implements. Each depart- 
ment, while Avorking independently, is a part of the whole 
system, aiming at the same purpose. 

The pupils of the school, during the first two years, work in 
their several departments, and the third year they devote to 
a special branch, which makes them more efficient as practical 
assistants after graduation. The graduates of the school have 
proven very successful, and adhere to their calling. 



CAEMEL. 

The Jewish colony at Carmel is, in many respects, different 
from those at Alliance and Woodbine. At Carmel there 
was no purchase of a large tract of land for division among 
those who came to carve out farms. This settlement was 
established in 1883, the year following the advent of the 
colony at Alliance. It was comprised of 100 families, num- 
bering in all about GOO men, women and children. They 
selected land which lies partly in Millville and partly in Deer- 
field township. Eude houses were built by the aid of money 
secured from the building association of the city of Bridge- 
ton, to which, of course, mortgages were given covering the 
entire properties. Later on the building associations fore- 
closed the mortgages, and property after property went un- 
der the hammer, and the poor settlers were completely dis- 
heartened. 

At this terrible crisis of affairs, a committee was appointed 
and sent, with an earnest appeal, to the late Baron de Hirsch. 
The Baron was not the man to turn a deaf ear to the cries of 
his countrymen for assistance, and he sent the sum of $5,000 



XEW JERSF.Y HAXD-BOOK. 313 



to be loaned to the struggling people in such sums as careful 
investigation proved to be needed in each individual case. 

The "soil at Carmel is very good, resembling the soil at 
Alliance and Woodbine. The crops of white and sweet pota- 
toes are abundant and bring large and sure returns ; ^ome of 
the finest melons produced in New Jersey are raised at Car- 
mel, and the berry and grape crops are of a high standard. 

There are some excellent farmers at this settlement; hard 
workers, who have made a careful study of the capabilities 
of the soil, who have learned how^ to treat it to produce the 
best results, and ^\\\o are constantly on the alert for all that 
will elevate and improve their condition. The farms are 
remarkablv neat and present a fine, thrifty appearance. 

The town site of Carmel is small and the synagogue is the 
only pul)lic building. There are three manufactories, one 
in which clothing for men and boys is manufactured and two 
devoted to the nianufacture of ladies' waists and wrappers. 



114 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



NEW JERSEY A MANUFACTURING 
STATE. 



PEEPARED BY MORGAN, OF THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF 
NEW JERSEY. WILLIAM STAINSBY, CHIEF. 



New Jersey is distinctively a marmfacturing State, occupy- 
ing a position in the front rank of the commonwealths of the 
Union — the products of whose mines, mills and factories have 
made American industry famous and bid fair to make our 
country, at no distant date, the "workshop of the world." 

In diversity of industries it is not surpassed by any other 
State, everything known to the wants of man being made 
within its borders. Factories engaged in all industries are 
distributed plentifully over the State, enjoying the advan- 
tages in the shipment of goods afforded by the network of 
railroads with which it is traversed, or the cheaper transpor- 
tation and water-power offered by the numerous navigable 
streams which flow to tidewater. Whether on the railroad or 
on the water, the traveler in New Jersey is seldom out of 
sight of the factory chimney. 

There are large cities and towns, such as Newark, Paterson, 
Jersey City, Elizabeth, Trenton and Camden, with their hun- 
dreds of industrial establishments engaged in the production 
of the particular wares that have made the names of these 
places famous ; others of less size have their share of manufac- 
turing activity, and many prosperous villages and hamlets are 
found clustered about the one industry which diffuses comfort 
and happiness among the inhabitants, and which they regard 
hopefully as the nucleus of future community growth. All 
have an intelligent appreciation of the value of diversified 
industry in building up permanent prosperity and elevating 
the standards of living. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 115 



The wise policy pursued by the State in the matter of corpo- 
ration organization and the care with which legislation likely 
to hamper industry in even the slightest degree has been 
avoided, has done much toward bringing this condition of 

things about. 

Many manufacturers from outside the State who were 
baited in their old homes by laws enacted mistakenly m the 
interest of a class, have found a welcome refuge in New Jer- 
sey, where they enjoy all the natural advantages of the State s 
geographical position, and many special favors which the 
communities among whom they have settled are always will- 
ing to bestow. Among these are free factory sites, special 
guarantees regarding tax rates, and frequently, in the case of 
particularly-desirable industries, capital to assist m establish- 
ing the plant. 

\lmost every town having a population of three thousand 
or more has its Board of Trade, which ofEers, on behalf of 
their respective communities, some one or all of these induce- 
ments, and, in many other ways, ably supplement the efforts 
of the State to make known the resources on which it depends 
for the maintenance of its position in the great industrial 
competition now going on between States and nations. That 
good results have followed these .efforts is shown by the increase 
of industrv in all the old centers of manufacturing activity, 
and the number of new towns established within recent years 
along the lines of the principal railroads, with factories, 
which, in most instances, have come from outside of the State, 
as the basis of settlement. 

An inquiry made by the New Jersey Bureau of Statistics 
in the early part of this year for the purpose of ascertaining 
the number and location of idle factory buildings, disclosed 
the astonishing fact that, outside of the first-class cities, there 
were not more than twelve structures at all adapted to factory 
purposes that were then unoccupied, and these were, for the 
most part, places the accommodations of which had been out- 
grown by the industries that had formerly occupied them. 
This canvass was made as the readiest means of answering 



116 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 



numerous letters addressed to the Bureau from within and 
without the State asking where such accommodations might 
be found. A detailed study of the industries of New Jersey 
is not intended here; the purpose being merely to refer to 
them in a general way, giving a little extra attention to, and 
some leading facts about, the lines of manufacture in which 
the State is pre-eminent. 

According to the United States Census of 1890 there were 
only five States, viz.. New York, Pennsylvania, jMassachu- 
setts, Illinois and Ohio, whose yearly product of manufac- 
tured goods exceeded in value that of New Jersey, which was 
$354,573,571. In the production of silk goods New Jersey 
was far ahead of all other States; its output for the census 
year being valued at $30,760,371, as against $87,398,454 for 
the entire Union. In clay products, including pottery, it was 
also first; in glass, leather, and leather products and jewelry 
it ranked second. Pennsylvania only producing more glass 
and Massachusetts more leather goods and jewelry. 

The United States census data for 1900 not being available, 
the present rank of New Jersey among the manufacturing 
States cannot be accurately determined. It was sixth in 1890, 
and those best acquainted with the subject have faith that the 
new figures, when issued, will give it a higher place. 

The Bureau of Statistics of New Jersey publishes a report 
each year, with carefully-prepared tables, in which all the 
manufacturing establishments in the State, grouped under 
their proper industry heading, have a place. Quoting the 
latest report of the Bureau (1900), there are eighty-nine of 
these general groups of industries, of which the largest and 
most important in every respect is the manufacture of silk 
goods — broad and ribbon. 

THE SILK INDUSTRY. 



There are now 153 silk mills and silk dye-houses in New 
Jersey, 107 of which are in the city of Paterson. A majority 
of the others are in West Hoboken or Jersey City. 



XEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 117 

The following abstract oi' the State Bureau's report will 
show the proportions of the industry for 1900 : 

Number of establishments 152 

Capital invested in plants $22,449,407 

Value of stock or material used $24,643,008 

Selling value of goods made $43,369,405 

Average number of persons employed 27,704 

Total amount paid in wages $10,658,137 

The census of 1890 credited New Jersey with 132 establish- 
ments engaged in the silk industry; these mills employed 
17,918 persons, used material valued at $17,908,883 and pro- 
duced goods that sold for $30,760,371. 

The increase shown by these figures, while large, does not 
adequately represent the advance made in this im]iortant in- 
dustry during the last decade ; there are only twenty more 
mills, but almost all the old establishments have been largely 
increased in size during the past four years, and 10,000 more 
persons are now employed. The ijicrease in the value of pro- 
duct is $12,009,034, but it must be borne in mind that the 
selling value of silk goods, owing to improved processes of 
manufacture, is now much lower than it was ten years ago, 
and that, therefore, the gain in actual quantity of goods pro- 
duced is greater than that shown by the difference in selling 
value. New Jersey is justly proud of her pre-eminence in the 
silk industry, the product of which is the chosen garb of the 
highest civilization; proud also of her "silk city" of Paterson, 
the "Lyons of America," from the looms of which comes fully 
one-half of the New World's product of this beautiful fabric, 
and looks confidently ahead to the not far-distant time when 
her output will surpass, in quantity and quality, that of her 
famous Old World rival. 

Other industries in which New Jersey manufacturers hold a 
leading place are the production of brick and terra-cotta, 
glass, men's hats, jewelry, pottery, leather, shoes, woolen and 
worsted goods, chemical products and refined oils (including 
by-products of refinery). 



118 NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 

The number of establisliments engaged in each of these 
industries, the capital invested, value of material used and of 

goods made, &c., is taken from the report of the New Jersey 
Bureau of Statistics for 1900. 

BRICK AND TERRA-COTTA. 

Number of establishments 66 

Capital invested in plants $7,059,502 

"Value of stock or material used $1,384,935 

Selling value of goods made $4,931,838 

Average number of persons employed 6,596 

Total amount paid in wages $2,013,843 

GLASS — WINDOW AND BOTTLE. 

Number of establishments 23 

Capital invested in plants $4,045,452 

Cost value of stock or material used $1,416,693 

Selling value of goods made $4,936,726 

Average number of persons employed 6,358 

Total amount paid in wages $2,438,246 

men's felt and wool HATS. 

Number of establishments 5i 

Capital invested $2,155,28.'l 

Cost value of stock or material used. ...... $3,750,012 

Selling value of goods made $7,548,64S 

Average number of persons employed 5,5S^. 

Total amount paid in wages $2,559,917 

JEWELRY. 

Number of establishments 65 

Capital invested in plants. $3,174,095 

Cost value of stock or material used $3,252,708 

Selling value of goods made $6,489,470 

Average number of persons employed 2,659 

Total amount paid in wages $1,364,846 

POTTERY. 

Number of establishments 30 

Capital invested in plants $5,502,462 

Cost value of stock or nJaterial used $1,217,864 

Selling value of goods made $4,943,341 

Average number of persons employed 3,705 

Total amount paid in wages , $1,981,118 



NEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 119 



LEATHER. 

Number of establishments 55 

Capital invested in plants $6,279,174 

Cost value of stock or material used $7,394,687 

Selling value of goods made $12,047,017 

Average number of persons employed 3,893 

Total amount paid in wages $1,781,478 

SHOES. 

Number of establishments 48 

Capital invested in plants $2,320,191 

Cost value of stock or material used $3,670,981 

Selling value of goods made $6,682,954 

Average number of persons employed 4,882 

Total amount paid in wages $1,755,945 

WOOLEN AND WORSTED GOODS. 

Number of establishments 38 

Capital invested in plants $7,959,617 

Cost value of stock or material used $6,543,420 

Selling value of goods made $10,515,033 

Average number of persons employed 7,623 

Total amount paid in wages $2,040,666 

CHEMICAL PRODUCTS. 

Number of establishments 42 

Capital invested in plants $13,798,456 

Cost value of stock or material used $8,104,981 

Selling value of goods made $13,800,362 

Average number of persons employed 3.400 

Total amount paid in wages $1,572,793 

REFINED OILS AND THEIR BY-PRODUCTS. 

Number of establishments 14 

Capital invested in plants $17,342,9.53 

Cost value of stock or material used $30,371,378 

Selling value of goods made .$34,102,998 

Average number of persons employed 2.797 

Total amount paid in wages $1,579,342 

Every stage of iron and steel manufacture, from mining 
the ore to constructing ships, bridges, the frames of great 
buildings, machinery of every kno^vn type and the endless 
variety of other products of these metals, is carried on in ^^ew 



120 XEW JERSEY HAXD-BOOK. 

Jersey ; there are mines wliieli produce a superior grade of 
iron ore, and blast furnaces where it is reduced to pig; pud- 
dling works in which it is converted into steel and refined 
iron; rolling mills to work it into convenient bars, and hun- 
dreds of machine shops and foundries in which it is wrought 
into the multitudinous forms demanded by the commerce 
and industry of the world. 



THE CHIEF MANUEACTURIXG CENTERS OF NEW 
JERSEY AND THEIR PRINCIPAL INDUSTRIES. 

NEWARK. 

Newark has the largest population and the greatest divers- 
ity of industries of any city in New Jersey. Indeed, it is 
claimed for it that a wider variety of articles are made in its 
factories than in any other city in the Union. In the value 
of its annual output of manufactured goods it ranked as 
the twelfth American city according to the census of 1890, 
$100,052,208 being the amount given. 

It is first in the manufacture of leather, jewelry and cellu- 
loid. For many years the manufacture of leather has been a 
leading industry in the city, the tanneries growing steadily 
in number and size, until now there are forty-six of them in 
Newark out of the fifty-seven in the entire State. 

The manufacture of celluloid is in a peculiar sense a 
Newark industry ; it is here the inventor of this almost epoch- 
making article lived and perfected the invention, out of which 
an industry of vast proportions, that supplies hundreds of 
articles of utility and ornament to the commerce of the world, 
has grown. There are now three great plants engaged in this 
industry, owned by the Celluloid Manufacturing Company. 
The capital invested amounts to nearly $2,000,000, and 675 
persons are employed. 

Jewelry is a line of manufacture in which New Jersey 
ranks second; as stated before, it was surpassed in 1890 only 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 121 



by Massachusetts. There xvere then seventy-four estab ish- 
ments engaged in the industry, and the product «as valued 
at $4,724,000. There are now sixty-seven plants engaged m 
the trade, all located in Newark, and their product lor 1900 
according to reports, made to the New Jersey Bureau of 
Statistics, amounted to $6,489,470, an increase of $l,<Co,470, 

"Tl/te'ring of malt liquors is another industry for which 
Newark is famous; quoting again the New Jersey Bureau of 
Statistics, there are now thirty-two breweries m the State, 
hiving ail invested capital of $17,165,800; 1800 men are 
employed, and $1,398,075 was paid in wages; their J"'"* P™' 
duct was 1,983,241 barrels of lager beer ale, ?-*« ^^^ °*;^ 
malt liquors, the selling value of which was $11,691,016. 
Sixteen of these establishments are m Newark. 

The manufacture of hats is another industry m which New 
Jers y w s first among the States in 1890. The table given 
ah "shows Its proportions in 1900 and the details do n 
require repetition here. The factories are all located m the 

°Thfs::re'':::tdustries,and they are among the most 
importannn the United States, that may be regarded a 
Setvely belonging to Newark. .Tbe 'act *at they hv 
reached such proportions in that city shows that condition 
Tore are more' favorable to their growth and expansion than 
elsewhere. 



PATEESON. 



The production of silk goods is the chief industry of Pate - 

son The are 107 mills within the eity limits and several 

on. Ih-;"/"^, . , j„„„3^ „any of whose operatives 

large ones m the oi^lyin ^ ^^^.^_^^, 



132 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

engaged in the production of silk-mill supplies, and several 
large machine shops that make nothing but silk machinery. 

The next most important industry of Paterson is its ma- 
chine shops. There are two locomotive works — the Cook 
Locomotive and Machine Company and the Rogers Locomo- 
tive Works. 

The first-named company turned out in the year 1900 130 
locomotives, which were sold for $1,508,618. The Rogers 
works has been doing little or nothing for the past year, 
owing to the retirement of the old management, but are now 
about to resume operations under the control of new men. 

Twelve large machine shops produce silk and other special 
machinery, one devotes itself entirely to that required for 
making rope and twine. There are numbers of combined 
machine shops and foundries. Steam engine and boiler 
works, jute machinery, iron and brass castings, jfiles and rasps 
of a superior quality, and a great variety of other metal pro- 
ducts are turned out by Paterson establishments. 

In the textile industries, outside of silk, Paterson has 
several mills engaged in the production of white wear for 
men and women, in which nearly 1,500 hands are employed. 
There is also a large dj'^e-house for dyeing and finishing 
cotton goods ; one manufactory of carriages and wagons, f our 
of paper boxes, one of carpets and rugs and one of food pro- 
ducts makes a list that is fairly representative of the city's 
main industries. 

JERSEY CITY. 

Jersey City has no one special industry with which, like 
Paterson or Trenton, its name is particulary associated. 
Manufacturing on a large scale and covering a wide range of 
articles is carried on there. 

Its greatest single industry and largest manufacturing 
establishment is the plant of the P. Lorillard Tobacco Com- 
pany, which covers two city blocks and employs nearly 3,000 
hands. 

The principal industries and the number of establishments 
engaged in each of them is as follows: 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 123 



Boilers — steam 2 establishments. 

Boxes — wood and paper 3 "' 

Breweries 2 '' 

Chemical products ."5 " 

Electrical appliances 1 " 

Food products 2 " 

Foundry — brass 2 " 

Furnaces, ranges, &e 3 " 

Graphite products 2 " 

Lamps and chandeliers 1 " 

Machinery 4 " 

Metal goods 4 " 

Paints 2 " 

Rubber goods 3 " 

Silk goods 3 " 

Soap, tallow and perfumery 6 " 

Steel and iron — bar, structural and 

forgings 5 " 

Thread and twine 1 " 

Watch works 1 *' 

Cooperage .5 " 

Sugar refining (American Company), 1 "' 

Zinc works — refining zinc ore 1 " 



TEENTON. 

Pottery. — Trenton has thirty large pottery plants, in which 
ahout 3,750 hands are employed. Particulars as to capital 
invested, value of product, &c., have been given in another 
part of this article. 

The potteries of Trenton are, almost without exception, 
large, and fitted yni\\ modern machinery of types best suited 
to the production of the lines of ware which is made in each 
of them. The management is in the hands of men thoroughly 
acquainted with every detail of the business, as is proven by 
the high rank held by Trenton ware in the pottery trade of 
the world. Every grade of goods, from the plainest earthen- 
ware to the finest decorated China and porcelain, is made 
here. Plumbers' sanitary ware is a specialty in some estab- 
lishments, which find all they can do in supplying orders. 

Structural Steel and Iron. — The industry next in import- 
ance to pottery is the structural steel and iron works of the 



124 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 

New Jersey Steel and Iron Company, the John A. Roebling's 
Sons' Company and the Trenton Iron Company. 

All the material used in the engineering works carried on 
by the Roeblings is supplied by these Trenton plants. In the 
works upward of 2,000 hands are employed, and on the out- 
side a much larger number is engaged in construction. 

Rubber. — The rubber industry is carried on in Trenton on 
probably a larger scale than elsewhere. There are ten plants, 
which employ nearly 2,000 hands, and make rubber into 
almost all known commercial forms. 

The manufacture of oil-cloth and linoleum, carriages, brass 
lamps and bedding is carried on in Trenton on a large scale. 

elizabp:th. 

Sewing Machines. — Elizabeth's most important industry, 
the one which gives steady employment to more than one-half 
of its wage-workers, is the manufacture of sewing machines. 

The home factory of the Singer Manufacturing Company, 
which is said to be the greatest manufacturing industry in 
the world, is located here. 

The buildings are immense in size — the one in which 
machining and constructing operations are carried on being 
five stories in height and only a little less than one-half mile 
long. In the enclosure formed by this building and those 
used for foundry and forging purposes there is twenty miles 
of railroad track and four locomotives are in constant use for 
carrying stock used in the works from one department to 
another. More than 5,000 hands are at present employed 
there in manufacturing Singer sewing machines of thirty or 
forty distinct types; the yearly output is about 500,000 
machines. 

The Singer company has 8,000 offices in the United States 
for the sale of their product, and employ in all the various 
ramifications of their business, as agents, salesmen, instruct- 
ors, &c., about 50,000 jjersons in the United States and 
Canada. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 135 



Ship-hmlding. — The Crescent Ship-building Company 
(Lewis Nixon's yard) is located here; although not as large 
as some other ship-building plants in the country, its reputa- 
tion for good work and promptness in carrying out contracts 
is of the very best. It was here the "Bancroft" and "An- 
napolis," both fine gunboats, were built; the wonderful sub- 
marine torpedo boat "Holland" was also constructed at this 
yard. More than one hundred craft, large and small, have 
been launched within ten years. The Crescent company has 
now on the stocks and nearing completion one monitor and 
several torpedo boats and destroyers. About 500 men are at 
present employed in the yard. Other important industries 
of Elizabeth are one large foundry, employing 450 hands; 
four machine shops, making steam engines and general ma- 
chinery. These employ together about 1,300 hands. There 
are a large number of smaller factories engaged in producing 
a wide variety of useful things, such as wire, rubber, leather, 
roofing material and builders' materials. 

NEW BRUNSWICK. 

New Brunswick has several large industries, the chief 
among them, in the number of hands employed, being the 
Norfolk and New Brunswick Hosiery Company, which em- 
ploys nearly 700 hands, and in 1900 produced goods valued 
at $600,000. 

Other important industries are : 

The Consolidated Fruit Jar Works, makers of all kinds of 
sheet-metal goods; two large establishments for the manu- 
facture of wall paper, a rubber works in which bicycle tires 
are made, a manufactory or laboratory for making surgical 
bandages or dressings, and a cigar factory. All these estab- 
lishments are among the largest in the country producing the 
lines of goods in which they are engaged. Each of them em- 
ploys 500 hands or more, and pays large sums annually in 
wages. 



126 NEW JEESEY HAND-BOOK. 



PASSAIC. 

Passaic is entitled to high rank among the manufacturing 
cities of New Jersey; its factories and mills have grown in 
size and number during the past five or six years, until now it 
has, in certain lines of manufacture, the largest mills in the 
State. The production of woolen and worsted goods is Pas- 
saic's chief industry. The Botany Mill is the largest single 
establishment in the city and the greatest of its kind in the 
country. Upwards of 3,500 persons are employed there, and 
worsted and woolen dress goods and yarns to the value of 
$3,480,000 were produced in 1900. There are five other 
mills in which worsted and woolen goods are turned out, 
that employ between them about 800 persons. 

Other important textile industries carried on in Passaic is 
the manufacture of cotton cloth and dyeing, printing and 
finishing the same. Six large mills are engaged in this work, 
many hundreds of hands are employed and the yearly product 
of goods runs well into the millions. 

There are many other towns in New Jersey in which manu- 
facturing is carried on as the principal business of the com- 
munity. Indeed, it may be truthfully said that, outside of 
the coast resorts, which have large populations during the 
summer and are practically deserted at other seasons of the 
year, every town in New Jersey is, to some extent, a manufac- 
turing center. The enterprise of the people has always been 
quick to take advantage of natural conditions, and so glass 
plants, some of them the largest in the world, are found at 
Millville, Vineland, Bridgeton, Fairton, Swedesboro, Clay- 
ton, Glassboro, Woodbury, Salem and Williamstown, in Cum- 
berland, Gloucester and Salem counties, where a superior 
quality of glass sand is found in immense beds, with practi- 
cally an inexhaustible supply of wood for fuel. 

On the coast, where the fishing and oyster industry is car- 
ried on, there are factories for converting the non-edible fish 
and the waste parts left by the main industry into fertilizers, 
or fish guano. 



NEW JERSEY HAND-BOOK. 12? 

At Perth Amboy and Red Bank, owing to the presence of 
proper clays in great abundance, there are immense brick 
and terra-cotta making plants. On the waste of meadow land 
running from Newark to the Raritan river the shore line is 
dotted with large fertilizer works, so far removed from popu- 
lation as to cause no annoyance on account of odor, and having 
the advantage of cheap water routes in the shipment of 
product. 

To enumerate all the articles made in the factories and 
workshops of New Jersey would be to go over the entire list 
of things, great and small, that are known to the wants of 
man. 

In some of the industries named, the State ocupies a lead- 
ing position, and in all others her place is not much behind 
the foremost. 

The number of wage-earning men and women employed in 
the factories and workshops is approximately 300,000; these 
are among the most intelligent and best-paid operatives in 
the country, and the value of the annual product of their 
labor is not much less than $400,000,000. 

The Bureau of Statistics will cheerfully answer inquiries 
which parties interested in the industries of New Jersey may 
address to it. 

Information will be given regarding the various lines of 
manufacturing carried on in the State, the location of estab- 
lishments engaged in them, and the names of cities and towns 
which offer special inducements for the location of manufac- 
turing plants. 



i L. C. Bindery 



